Facebook Partner Categories Launched, New Advertising for Businesses

Facebook Partner Categories Launched, New Advertising for Businesses
6 Low Cost Online Management Tools for Your Small Business
TARP Funds Spent on Bailout Debt Instead of Small Business Loans
4 Powerful Google Tools For Online Marketing

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 01:30 PM PDT

Facebook Partner Categories, a new advertising model for businesses, has been launched. Facebook Partner Categories aim to target users based on more than just their activity inside Facebook.

The social network announced the new feature on April 10, 2013 in a post on the Facebook Studio Blog.

Facebook is using about 500 “unique groups” called Partner Categories that will target its more than one billion users by organizing them based on their locations, browsing histories and purchasing histories. The leading social network site is using data from Datalogix, Epsilon and Acxiom to manage the unique groups.

Now, would-be advertisers will be able to target which specific “unique groups” of users they’d like to reach with their ads by selecting a Partner Category (pictured above). While these new groups provide a broader array of users to advertisers, they’ll still be able to hone that reach even more by using the services already offered by Facebook for businesses choosing to advertise on the site.

An example of a Partner Category would be a generic group of consumers such as “cereal buyers” from which an advertiser could choose to whittle down to include just buyers of “children’s cereals” or “hot cereals.”

In the official announcement, the company stated, “No personal information is shared between Facebook, third parties or advertisers. Partner categories work the same way all targeting on Facebook works. The advertiser only knows the size of the audience and can't access any information about individuals included in a category.”

More details on the way Facebook treats user data when collecting data for advertising partners can be found in the company’s “Facebook and Privacy Notes” under the topic of advertisers and third-party partners.

TechCrunch reports the new Facebook Partner Categories service is a big progression beyond Facebook’s existing advertising services because it utilizes additional user data to aid advertisers in targeting specific customers.

Facebook Partner Categories are now available to advertisers in the U.S. in Power Editor and through API.

The post Facebook Partner Categories Launched, New Advertising for Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

6 Low Cost Online Management Tools for Your Small Business

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 11:00 AM PDT

online management tools

Every small business needs an arsenal of online tools to achieve business success without breaking the bank. In today's "freemium" world, many companies offer low-cost or even free online management tools that will help you stay sane and effective as a manager while increasing your productivity.

Best of all, they do the job without putting pressure on your pocketbook. Below are six of them worth a serious look.

6 Low Cost Online Management Tools

Box

The ability to efficiently share important files such as spreadsheets, documents and presentations with your team, customers and other partners is crucial. Box, a cloud-based file sharing and storage solution, makes it easy to share files without complicating the way you normally work.

Getting started is a snap: Just drag and drop your content from your desktop to Box, even really large files. Be sure to check out the BoxSync download that lets you keep the content on your computer in sync with Box.

As a small business owner, you can enjoy instantaneous file backup, easy file sharing and the ability to access files from multiple computers and mobile devices.

Freshbooks

FreshBooks is all about making accounting fast and simple and was designed specifically around the needs of small business owners. Just add your customers and you can easily generate professional-looking invoices and send them with the click of a button and even accept online payments.

One of the best things about Freshbooks is that although it's easy to use, it still boasts a lot of really great features that help you stay organized when it comes to your money. Things such as reports, time tracking and expense tracking. Freshbooks is a cloud service, so your data is backed up and accessible from remote locations.

You also can access Freshbooks from all your favorite gadgets, such as your smartphone or tablet.

Insightly

Providing your customers and prospects with world-class service is something you strive for every day because you know how critical it is. Making sure that you and your team stay on the ball and even improve those efforts, especially as you grow, is a different story.

With the right blend of horsepower and ease of use for small business, Insightly’s CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software can help. It allows you to collect, organize and share important contact information so that you can manage the relationship more successfully and create a better customer experience.

Insightly offers a simple, friendly user-interface, which is a huge plus, both for getting set up quickly and for getting familiar with the system. It integrates tightly with tools such as Gmail and Google Apps, so it will work well with systems you already have in place. With built-in project management tools such as tasks, milestones and notifications, you stay organized and deliver on time. Because the information is centralized, everyone on your team who needs to know what is going on can stay in the loop.

A cloud-based system with anytime, anywhere access, Insightly offers modern features demanded by savvy small businesses, such as smartphone access and social media integration.

MeetingBurner

Meetings and conference calls are an integral part of daily business activity. By introducing Web conferencing tools such as MeetingBurner, you can effectively and cheaply connect with customers and other colleagues who are far away.

Save yourself the expense and time involved in a business trip by using the Web for your next meeting. Simply schedule the meeting from within MeetingBurner, add it to your calendar and then email your participants the instructions provided. MeetingBurner automatically generates a conference call line that participants dial into as well as a website link to click on so they can see whatever you want to share with them from your computer.

MeetingBurner works for both Mac and PC, and will even send everyone reminders about upcoming meetings.

Mail Chimp

Email marketing with newsletters can be a terrific, cost-effective way to engage your customers and Mailchimp helps make it all painless and relatively quick. How do you build your list? What do you do when someone doesn't want to receive emails anymore? What is the appropriate size when you're designing an email newsletter? How do you know if people are looking at the emails you send? Mailchimp handles all of that for you – and more.

At its core, it helps you build your list, wrap your message in a pretty package, blast it out and track the results of your campaign. Other notable features include the ability to segment your mailing list, so you can target your messages according to the different needs of your customers and to integrate with services already in use by small businesses everywhere, such as Freshbooks, Google Analytics, Facebook, WordPress and Magento.

HootSuite

Is your small business leveraging multiple social media channels as part of your core marketing strategy? Are you looking for a smarter way to take control of your social media activity? Then give HootSuite a whirl. Hootsuite is a social media management tool that gives you a centralized place for managing, tracking and measuring all of your different social networks, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google + and more.

Because Hootsuite is a cloud solution, all you need to access the service is an Internet connection and Web browser. Plus, HootSuite boasts a wide range of mobile apps to help users on the move.

From CRM to email marketing to social media, your small business solutions can be the difference between a smooth sailing enterprise and an ugly crash on the rocks. Fortunately for today's small business owner, the modern world is competitive. That means more free online management tools than ever before.

What free or low cost online management tools have made your business life easier?

Tools Photo via Shutterstock

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TARP Funds Spent on Bailout Debt Instead of Small Business Loans

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 08:00 AM PDT

bailout

A new government watchdog report says community banks used money intended for small business loans to pay back their federal bailout debts instead.

The conclusions were released by the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP) in a report titled, “Banks that Used the Small Business Lending Fund to Exit TARP (PDF).” The report says community banks did not properly use the money they received through the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF).

The SBLF was created in 2010 and funded with $30 billion by the U.S. Congress. The money was to be distributed to community banks to stimulate small business lending. The SBLF was intended to address a lack of investment in the small business sector by the initial Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

While the U.S. Department of the Treasury only ever invested $4 billion of the $30 billion Congress made available, the report shows $2.1 billion of that money was applied to TARP debts, not small business lending. The money helped 137 banks exit TARP in 2011.

“Former TARP banks in SBLF have not effectively increased small business lending and are significantly underperforming compared to non-TARP banks,” SIGTARP Special Inspector General Christy Romero wrote in the report.

Specifically, 24 former TARP banks did not increase lending whatsoever. The remaining former TARP banks only increased lending by $1.13 for every dollar in SBLF funds they received. Non-TARP banks receiving SBLF funds lent, on average, $3.45 for every dollar in SBLF funding.

The report blames a lack of communication between the Treasury and banking regulators for mismanagement of the funds. Specifically, the report summarizes that both Treasury and federal bank regulators failed to assess whether required lending plans submitted by banks to receive the funds were achievable. They also did not monitor to determine whether banks were prepared to lend the SBLF funding to small businesses as intended.

The report concluded the TARP banks had much to gain and little to lose by taking the SBLF funding. The funding provided the opportunity to pay off the TARP debt with no meaningful penalty for failure to increase lending.

Bailout Money Photo via Shutterstock

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4 Powerful Google Tools For Online Marketing

Posted: 11 Apr 2013 05:00 AM PDT

online marketing

[Visua.ly Personalized Analytics Infographic Example]

Almost all businesses, regardless of size or industry, use Google in some form. Be it Google Calendars, Google Drive or trusty old Gmail, it seems as though everyone relies on at least one of Google's products to support their work routine. That said, there are a few hidden treasures in Google's toolbox that, at times, don't seem to get enough credit.

Sure, Google has hundreds of apps, but there are some that can have a serious impact on your online marketing initiatives that seem to be flying under the radar. Additionally, Google's products typically have “freemium” models, which offer the invaluable opportunity to experiment with a variety of different techniques and hone in on what serves your brand most.

We're all for testing out the latest and greatest from the world's most powerful Internet giant. If you haven't already, I encourage you to give a few of these seemingly under-appreciated products a spin.

4 Powerful Google Tools For Online Marketing

Google Trends

If you're looking to amp up your SEO strategy, Google Trends is a tool that shouldn't be overlooked. It allows you to see how frequently a term is searched so you can get a gauge for its popularity.

Google Trends instantly creates a graph of the search volume by language, country, city or region, revealing how the term has evolved over specific increments of time. It also forecasts how those terms will trend over time, helping you to make more educated decisions.

Essentially, Google Trends makes it easy for you to stay current with your product's marketing language so you can jump into conversations about topics relevant to your space.

Think With Google

We like to consider Think With Google as a creative brain-trust we can turn to when searching for inspiration for our online marketing strategies. The resource is loaded with valuable information on industry trends, research and statistics, tips on marketing techniques and unique insights to get your creative juices flowing.

When devising your online marketing strategy or quarterly and yearly plans, don't skip Think With Google. We love visiting this tool when we’ve come down with a marketing writer's block, too.

GoMo

Consider this: 67 percent of people say a mobile-friendly site makes them more likely to buy a product or use a service. In other words, you should tap into the mobile revolution or your business may soon be left behind with the fax machines and the pagers of the world—otherwise known as those that failed to innovate.

Luckily, GoMo makes the transition to the digital world a simple one. Free for the first year, GoMo instantly generates a mobile-friendly version of your website so you're no longer deterring your on-the-go customers with a site that's nearly impossible to navigate.

Google Analytics

This might seem like a no brainer to some, but studies show that Google Analytics is actually a terribly underutilized tool among small and medium sized businesses. Without Google Analytics, carrying out website online marketing strategies is like driving blindly in the dark. Website analytics reveal critical data about how existing and potential customers interact with you online. When evaluated properly, the analytics insights offer up ample opportunities for customer engagement and retention.

If you take away one thing from this article, let it be this: Install Google Analytics and learn to love it.

Quick tip: If you already have Google Analytics running on your site, check out Visua.ly's personalized analytics infographics. You can create visual infographics that include your site’s data so that you can track your site’s performance by viewing it in an infographic. (An example is pictured above.)

I make a concerted effort to explore each of Google's online marketing apps and gather data on the impact they have. I’m always impressed with what I learn about our customers and marketing strategies. So while one of these four Google tools might leap out at you more than the others, my suggestion is to give them all a try and see what they churn up.

I think you'll be pleased with what Google has going besides search.

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