Find the Perfect Hire by Tapping Into Social Media |  |
- Find the Perfect Hire by Tapping Into Social Media
- 17 Web-based Sketching and Painting Tools
- Report on the BlackBerry 10 Launch: What it Means for Small Business Productivity
- Looking for a Google AdSense Alternative? Do Not Look to AdBrite
- Payvment Shuts Down Facebook E-commerce Platform
- 7 Tips for Your Business Sign or Lawn Sign
- Business Brand Rocks: Ben & Jerry’s Launches New Flavor
| Find the Perfect Hire by Tapping Into Social Media Posted: 30 Jan 2013 02:00 PM PST
When NPR's standard methods of searching for interns fell short and the organization wasn't getting enough candidates, they decided to spread the word through a Twitter campaign. The one week effort landed a flood of applications and led to hiring 15 new interns. NPR's move made sense because the organization was looking for employees who were social media savvy. What can you learn from NPR's approach? Here are 3 ideas: Think Outside the Box While we might think of LinkedIn first when we think of hiring, since that social media site is set up for business networking, and even allows you to post job openings, it's not the only way to go when using social media to find job candidates. Match the social media network to your needs: For instance, if you're looking for a Facebook marketing expert, or someone whose job involves lots of socializing and outreach (such as a PR person), try reaching out on Facebook. If you're looking for a graphic designer or photographer, try spreading the word on a visually oriented social site like Tumblr or Instagram. Get Niche Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn aren't the only ways to go in terms of social media. Are there niche social media sites dedicated to your industry? If so, they could be great places to post if you're looking for someone with wide expertise in your industry. Even on Facebook and LinkedIn, you can get better results by drilling down to industry oriented or skill oriented groups (such as groups for the manufacturing industry or for B2B marketers) to spread the word about your open positions. On Twitter, create new hashtags relevant to your open positions or use existing hashtags so your tweets catch the attention of people following those topics. NPR, for instance, used a hashtag "#pubjobs" to attract people interested in public media. Always be Recruiting You say you have no open positions and no immediate plans to hire? No matter. With competition for talent heating up this year, if you do find yourself short of staff, you could end up suffering in comparison with bigger companies. That's why it's important to present ongoing information about what your company does, what it's like to work for you and what kinds of people and skills you're looking for. In addition to outright recruiting, NPR also did "soft" recruiting by using the hastag #nprlife to tweet about daily life at the office. The outreach gave potential candidates a look at what it would be like to work at the company. You can put this kind of information on your business's website, under a heading "Working at X Corp." or similar, where you can also list open positions and contact information when you have openings. All year long, share informal insights into what it's like to work at your business on your Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter accounts. Those insights could be photos from your latest staff potluck or tweets about what you're working on now. Showing off your small business as a fun, creative and rewarding place to work will go a long way toward building interest and goodwill that leads qualified candidates to you when the time comes. Employee Photo via Shutterstock The post Find the Perfect Hire by Tapping Into Social Media appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 17 Web-based Sketching and Painting Tools Posted: 30 Jan 2013 12:30 PM PST Most business owners need a graphic design tool from time to time. From sketching out a new logo, animation for a slide presentation, or to create caricatures of your crew to increase morale, these tools can help you without the added cost of traditional art software. This post highlights 17 tools to help you draw out your ideas. Most of these are free unless otherwise noted. Most run within your web browser with just one click or two and allow you to save an image file. Skitch from Evernote is one of my favorite tools for drawing. Skitch for iPad is the one I use and it makes a lot of sense from a tablet or smartphone. They do have versions for Windows and Mac. You can mark up a web page easily or draw something from scratch, then save to Evernote which is part of why it is popular and effective. The red arrow, pink blob, and red box are my marks, not from the elegant Evernote team!
FlashPAINT v2 lets you draw and paint online with a Flash paint tool. Click the "Paint" link in the left navigation box to get started. You are able to save your drawings (and post them to the public gallery). Provides you with a grid paper option to make drawing easier. Gliffy allows you to create technical drawings but has the added diversity of creating flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, Venn diagrams, and SWOT analyses. It works directly in your browser with easy to use with drag-and-drop shapes from the available library. Works with Windows and iOS; provides online sharing and collaboration. There is a free 30-day trial with $4.95 monthly subscriptions after that. Myoats offers an interesting drawing tool because you can create multisided figures. It only allows you to draw, but the multifaceted effects work like a kaleidoscope. Simple one-sided drawing is available as well, but the strength of this website is in its ability to replicate what you have drawn. Pencil Madness only creates sketched drawings, but it has interesting effects including spider webbing, bubbles, the leaky ink pen, grids, squares, a water smeared line, icicles, and spindles. I found it fun to play with this application and kept doodling. I even saved a few of my masterpieces, but I'm not sharing them. See image of a much better sketch in screenshot below.
Draw Island Allows you to paint or draw. It is unique in that you can create animations with this tool, as well. However, the animation feature only currently works if you have Firefox (Mozilla) for your Web browser. Sketchpad is solely a free online paint tool, but the effects it can create are awesome. There are stamp, wallpaper, geometric design, and fill options. Its unique color adjusting method allows you to visualize your scheme easier. It also has an option of painting in two tones. Viscosity is a unique abstract art creation site. Like other online painting and drawing websites, you are allowed to save your work on your computer. The difference is you begin viscosity with a mixed palette, which you drag your "brush" through. This tool is a little more difficult to use effectively, but it is also extremely enjoyable. Do Ink is a drawing and animation application that allows you to use vector-drawing tools to create your pictures. Aside from the traditional drawing tool, you also get art props that will add to the drawings you create. Do Ink is only available in a downloadable form for the iPad, iPhone, and iTouch. Odosketch is interesting because the sketches it creates resemble pencil and watercolor. The tips of your brush create both thin lines and wide ribbons. When you select your color you can also select the width of the tip. Create your sketch free online and then save it to your hard drive or disk. FlockDraw is an excellent choice for collaborative business drawing. It allows an unlimited number of users to participate for free. Think of a community whiteboard in an online format and you will have the essence of FlockDraw.
Artpad is an online painting tool that allows you to see the paintbrush. You can change colors, brush sizes, paint opacity, and you can even splatter paint or write on your drawing. It will let you replay your drawing and save it or any frame from the replay. Scriblink is an online whiteboard for users to share across the Internet. Use their board on their website or it allows you to download their whiteboard to fit your website for ($9 to $29 per month). It needs Java to run and I had a few problems with it, but overall it is a solid tool. Graffiti Plado allows you to bring the street to your art. Using spray paint on a wall texture background create your ideas and save them. Allows you to adjust color, size of the spray, strength, and even whether or not you want to see and hear the spray can while you paint. Wixie has all the traditional paint and drawing options, but adds in three-dimensional, crayon, and stretch functions. This website also allows you to choose the texture of your fills. Brushter is a free online painting website with a twist. Its paintbrushes all produce textured strokes. Like other painting websites, you can choose your colors, shades, and widths. You need the Adobe Shockwave Player to use it. This tool is produced by the National Gallery of Art. Onemotion is an online painting website. It allows you to adjust brush width and color, but its unique feature is that your speed controls the width of your line. What art program do you use to sketch out your ideas? The post 17 Web-based Sketching and Painting Tools appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Report on the BlackBerry 10 Launch: What it Means for Small Business Productivity Posted: 30 Jan 2013 10:11 AM PST
One of those launch cities is New York, and Ramon Ray, founder of SmallBizTechnology.com, attended the launch and provided this live report, including his analysis. The promise of the BlackBerry 10 for small business productivity
BlackBerry has launched two new phones. The Z10 has a virtual touchscreen keyboard. The BlackBerry Q10 has a physical keyboard. (Read a review of these new phones on ABC News.) Indeed the biggest challenges for BlackBerry are two-fold. First, will consumers and business users buy it? Second, will there be enough apps on this platform? Based on this first look, BlackBerry 10 appears fresh and innovative. A version of the above article and image (showing BlackBerry CEO Thorsten Heins and the new BlackBerry Z10 and Q10) was originally published on Smallbiztechnology.com and is included here with permission. The post Report on the BlackBerry 10 Launch: What it Means for Small Business Productivity appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Looking for a Google AdSense Alternative? Do Not Look to AdBrite Posted: 30 Jan 2013 08:30 AM PST AdBrite is ceasing operations effective February 1, 2013, reports AllThingsD. AdBrite, an advertising network started in 2004, has long been used by online publishers as an alternative for monetizing a website, in place of Google AdSense. Millions of small and large publishers (including this website) appreciate Google AdSense as a source of advertising revenue. However, some publishers have been frustrated by having their accounts shut down without warning. Google last month vowed to provide publishers with a more transparent AdSense appeals process in that event. Still, an alternative such as AdBrite was one that publishers banned by Google AdSense or simply wanting an alternative, could turn to — but no longer. AdBrite was reported to employ 26 people, who presumably will now be out of work. The company tried to find a buyer, but talks fell through. It is now selling off assets.
Another sad part to these situations is that existing partners were advised by email, yet the AdBrite homepage, pictured above, has nothing on it about ceasing operations as of this writing. We just went to the AdBrite website and were able to set up a new account. We even received the email confirmation for a new account. When businesses shut down, the least they can do is put a notification on the websites, and not continue to accept new accounts. So what alternatives are there to Google AdSense and AdBrite? 1 Singular Sensation lists a few AdSense alternatives. The post Looking for a Google AdSense Alternative? Do Not Look to AdBrite appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Payvment Shuts Down Facebook E-commerce Platform Posted: 30 Jan 2013 07:00 AM PST E-commerce platform Payvment is shutting down its service that gives online merchants the ability to run stores from their Facebook Pages. Now, it's helping its 200,000 customers transfer their stores over to Ecwid, a competing e-commerce platform that also allows merchants to sell on Facebook and a number of other sites. A message on the company's site stated that Payvment will be joining a new company, but offered no other details thus far. The Payvment platform will officially shut down on February 28, 2013.
To ensure a smooth transition, Ecwid has setup a process that will allow sellers to keep their Facebook storefronts up without interruption. The process involves just logging into your Payvment account and clicking "Transfer your Payvment store to Ecwid." Your data will be automatically transferred into a new Ecwid account. Once the transition is completed, you'll be automatically logged into your new Ecwid account where you can configure your online store and launch your new Facebook storefront. Payvment specialized in finding out what Facebook users Liked and what types of items they bought. Payvment also gave merchants access to an advertising platform that helped them auto-target Facebook advertising campaigns. Ecwid, on the other hand, works with both Facebook and other OpenSocial enabled networks. The platform allows users to manage their store from a single control panel even if they run storefronts on many different sites. The photo above shows Ecwid's sample storefront on Facebook. Users can separate items into categories, and shoppers can simply drag and drop items into their shopping carts. To use it, you simply sign up for an account and receive some lines of code into your website's source code. The code will allow you to include Ecwid widgets on other sites, including WordPress, Joomla, Squarespace and more. Then you just add your products to your Ecwid control panel and manage the settings of your online store. Changes will appear instantly on your Ecwid storefronts. Ecwid offers a free plan and other plans ranging from $15 to $99 per month. The plans give users different options for number of products, bandwidth, support, and other e-commerce features. Ecwid was founded in 2009, but the majority of the team previously worked on X-Cart, so they have been building e-commerce technology since 2000. The company is based in Encinitas, California and Ulyanovsk, Russia. The company currently has about 250,000 customers in 170 countries. The post Payvment Shuts Down Facebook E-commerce Platform appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 7 Tips for Your Business Sign or Lawn Sign Posted: 30 Jan 2013 05:00 AM PST
Are you a contractor that is supplying services at someones house or place of business? You should be using a business sign, like a sandwich board or a lawn sign, to draw in traffic or build awareness for you business. Signage is an excellent way to help generate sales leads for your company. Below are 7 tips that will help you generate a higher percentage of sales leads: 7 Tips for Your Business Sign or Lawn SignPhone Number This is just basic common sense. But believe it or not, business owners forget to add this one important piece of information to a business sign. So that you can track your results from any lawn signs, use a unique phone number that people can call. By doing this, you will be able to see how many leads came from that phone number. A great service for this is Toll Free Forwarding or Google Voice. Your Address If you have a retail establishment that you want people to go to, why not list your address on your business sign? It should help you to drive foot traffic to your retail location. A Strong Call To Action For An Offer Do you want to get someone to do something? If so, you need to have a “call to action.” Basically, you need to tell people what you want them to do. A suggestion that ties into the next 2 tips (QR Codes and Text Codes) is to have a coupon or special offer that allows you to capture an email and other relevant information. By capturing an email, you will have the ability to continually market to someone with an email newsletter. A QR Code Add a QR code to your business sign that is tied to a special offer or something that a potential customer may want. The QR Code should send the person to a mobile ready landing page that has a sign up form. Once the person signs up for your offer, they will be sent an email with a code or a coupon. A service that I have used before is Kawya. Text Code or SMS Code A text code or SMS code will allow a person to text a specific keyword to and assigned short code. This may sound confusing, but in reality, all you do is find a SMS marketing provider and register a keyword. Then you will be able to start directing people to a specific landing page on your website. I interviewed Jed Alpert, who wrote “The Mobile Marketing Revolution” and he stated that the:
I can confirm this as I have a client where we added a text code to a radio ad they were running and they saw a twenty-fold increase in sales leads from that spot. Here’s one more use for a text code: Place one on your vehicles so that people will connect with you. For the QR code and the text code, have separate landing pages and coupons and coupon codes. You want to do this so that you can track a conversion rate. For example, you can see how many people used your text code by the number of hits to a specific page. Then you can see how many people sign up for an offer and finally, the amount of people who redeem your coupon or offer. Website Address Make sure that you add your website address to your business sign. If your domain is too long, use a shortener like Bit.ly or get a separate shorter domain that redirects to your website. Bit.ly allows you to make a vanity url and you can also track the clicks from that specific url. As a suggestion, make sure that if you have an offer on your business sign – that the Web address corresponds with that offer. Don’t just send them to your homepage as your conversion rates will be far lower by doing this. Email Address Create a unique email address to put on your business sign so that you can track the amount of inquiries that come in. Add all of these tips to your business sign and you should see an increase in the amount of sales leads that you generate. By the way, this isn’t just for signs. Use these different tactics on business cards, letters, mailers and other printed material that you have as well. If you have other business sign tips, please share them in the comments. Sandwich Board Photo via Shutterstock The post 7 Tips for Your Business Sign or Lawn Sign appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Business Brand Rocks: Ben & Jerry’s Launches New Flavor Posted: 30 Jan 2013 02:30 AM PST An iconic business brand rocks with the announcement of its latest product. Ben & Jerry’s, the ice cream company known for its outrageous flavors with even more outrageous names always manages to keep its products in the spotlight. See how Ben & Jerry’s handles its brilliant branding efforts and how you can do the same with any budget. Business Brand Magic30 Rock finale. Ben & Jerry’s will unveil its latest flavor, “30 Rock” on Thursday, just in time for the season finale of the NBC comedy series for which it was named. The tie-in between the wrap-up of a popular TV show and the launch of a flavor honoring it is perfect. Bites on Today Second time’s the charm. This is the second time the ice cream maker has honored actor Alec Baldwin with a flavor. Ben & Jerry’s strategy has also included naming a flavor after late Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia. Pop culture references keep the company’s brand fresh and interesting. Syracuse.com Just deserts. Not all of Ben & Jerry’s experiments have been a success. The flavor launched last year to honor Baldwin drew criticism. The the flavor’s name was taken from a popular Saturday Night Live comedy sketch in which Baldwin participated, considered by some to be too adult for younger audiences. FoxNews.com Basics of Your Business BrandTry to relate. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a witty pop culture reference or something simpler. Your business brand must be something to which your customers can relate. Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill share an infographic and some tips about how to make your brand better. WebSuccessTeam Boost your business. Content marketing is one of the best means on the Web to build a business brand. Tim Devaney says customers often ignore TV advertising, billboards, and printed ads. Instead they look for the information they want, when they want it. That’s where content comes in. Forbes The perfect image. Video is one of the top branding tools for businesses large and small. Marketer Jamie Fairbairn explains the importance of maintaining a strong brand presence on video sites like YouTube. Here are some tips that will set your video page apart from competition. Social Media Today Branding with 140 characters. Another important branding tool is Twitter, the micro-blogging social platform. Huge companies have had tremendous success boosting their brand recognition with the power of just 140 characters. Here is an infographic showing the value of a little networking with some text attached. Wishpond The post Business Brand Rocks: Ben & Jerry’s Launches New Flavor appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
Are you looking to hire employees, contractors or interns this year? Take a tip from a Washington Post article on 
BlackBerry today officially launched its new BlackBerry 10 smartphone platform in a 6-city simultaneous launch – complete with a celebrity (Alicia Keys, who has been named Global Creative Director) in attendance.
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For those entrepreneurs itching to start their own business, purchasing a franchise can be a good alternative.
Everyone has been told to jump into social because it is so good for their business. I know for a fact that Realtors hear it all the time. Sadly, many people don't really know how to use social effectively and they don't understand what drives different social platforms.