Twitter Now Prohibits Automatic Follow Back

Twitter Now Prohibits Automatic Follow Back
Small Business Owners Are Not Morons Mark Cuban
How to Use Hangouts to Collaborate with Anyone, Anywhere, On Any Device
Are Exit Interviews Out of Fashion?

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 01:40 PM PDT

This week Twitter revoked its permission for apps that allow users to automatically follow back other accounts.

In other words, if someone voluntarily follows your Twitter account first, you cannot use an app to automatically follow them back. You must manually press a button if you want to follow them back.

Twitter Automatic Follow Back Language Dropped

This was confirmed in the Twitter Developer forums by a Twitter employee who goes by the online name of @truebe, responsible for “Twitter Platform Operations.” Truebe noted on July 4th:

“We removed the clause permitting automated follow-back, as we would prefer that users manually review their new followers and then choose whether or not they would like to follow back individual accounts. We understand that some users feel pressured to follow back; however, if not all of the accounts which followed you contained content which interested you or were gaming the system for your attention, would you still want to follow them back if they weren’t actually interested in you or your content? Accounts which follow-back may quickly find their home-timeline useless due to too much noise if they didn’t carefully pick and choose who to follow. We still welcome services which perform analyses on recent followers and highlight those that may interest you, but only if these services only allow you to followback each account individually and manually.”

Some are applauding the move. Shelly Kramer of V3 Integrated Marketing, who is very active on Twitter, told us in an interview with Small Business Trends that she supports Twitter’s move:

“Auto-following allows spammers and other people who are interested only in building huge networks to ‘automate’ the process of doing so. Which is lame. Followers who aren’t strategic, targeted and with whom you ultimately want to engage in some manner are worthless numbers intended to game the system.

I have as many commitments on my time as any other marketer or business owner does, so the ‘oh, but we don’t have time for this’ argument doesn’t work. If you want to build a network, realize that doing it online is no different than doing it in ‘real’ life. There’s no “auto-follow” button IRL, don’t expect for it to exist on social networks.”

However, others on the Twitter Developers board criticized the move. Critics view the restriction as Twitter dictating how to use the social media service.

A user by the name of @NameSugar said, ”I don’t personally read my home timeline, I have tweetdeck to filter through it for interesting things. I want to follow as many (real) accounts as I can and sometimes drinking from the firehose is my choice. It’s not up to Twitter to manage how I personally use Twitter.”

Another, @JerryBoutot, predicts that Twitter will go the way of MySpace and become less popular, if it becomes too restrictive. He goes on to say that Twitter is failing to recognize how users want to use the platform, noting that “Your users have turned Twitter into a web of microconnections,” and that the original idea of a place where you let your friends what you’re up to “is long gone.”

A Sign of Twitter Crack Downs to Come?

This move leaves some wondering if this is a signal of more restrictions to come.

For instance, there’s the recent spate of Twitter account suspensions. We’ve noted a number of legitimate business Twitter accounts being suspended in error recently. Based on comments and emails we’ve received, those types of suspensions are ongoing.

The suspensions are not necessarily related to auto-followbacks (one of our smaller team accounts was suspended in error, and we do not automatically follow back). But it leaves the impression that Twitter is getting more restrictive.

Apps such as SocialOomph have been forced to change and no longer allow Twitter automatic follow back activity. In an email to users on July 4th announcing that automatic followback would no longer be allowed, SocialOoomph noted, ”We’re as dumbfounded by Twitter’s decision as you are.”

Clearly there are differing points of view on this topic. What’s your position on Twitter automatic follow backs?

The post Twitter Now Prohibits Automatic Follow Back appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Small Business Owners Are Not Morons Mark Cuban

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 11:00 AM PDT

mark cuban

In a recent interview with Trish Regan on Bloomberg Television’s Street Smart (video is below), Dallas Mavericks owner and entrepreneur Mark Cuban said if you start a business by taking out a small business loan, you are a moron:

The one certainty is paying back the loan. The bank does not care about your business. 99% of small business you can start with next to no capital. It’s more about effort. Small businesses don’t fail from a lack of capital, they fail for a lack of brains, a lack of effort.

While a lack of savvy and insufficient effort doom many businesses, Cuban’s theory is simply incorrect.

Not everyone has personal savings or wealthy relatives to call upon for startup funding. That leaves two other sources: debt or equity financing. Cuban advocates equity financing (raising money by selling shares of common stock to individual or institutional investors). In return for the money they invest, shareholders receive ownership interest.

However, if a shareholder provides enough capital, the investor can take a controlling interest in the company. In this way, the entrepreneur may be hindered in his vision and, at some point, could even be removed from his own firm. Only about one percent of startup companies are funded by venture capitalists (VCs).

The more common way of raising money is through debt financing, meaning that the entrepreneur takes loans out to start the business. Admittedly, capital is not flowing as it did during the halcyon days of the mid 2,000′s, when big banks approved about half of the small business funding requests they received. However, the so-called credit crunch — when many of the big banks hunkered down and reclined an overwhelming percentage of funding requests — is not as severe as it once was. In fact, according to the Biz2Credit Small Business Lending Index for May 2013, big banks are approving small business loan applications at the highest rates since the Great Recession of 2009-2011.

In the past few years, the big banks ceded their dominance of the small business lending space. When they closed the door others — including smaller, regional banks, credit unions, microlenders, and cash advance companies — filled the void. Now that they are reentering the marketplace, the competition has become more intense. Thus, interest rates are quite attractive at the moment.

Cash advance companies, accounts receivable financiers used to charge rates at near loan shark levels. They have come down quite a bit over the past year or two. American Express, which offers merchant cash advance services to its customers, helped drop the rates to as low as 6.5 percent. Microlenders are willing to give people — even those with spotty credit histories — smaller amounts of startup cash to launch their firms. Small banks and credit unions, both of which are local in nature, are good sources of capital because they know the local economy and can make informed decisions. Big banks use their size, brand equity, and their ability to lend at attractive interest rates to their advantage.

The intense competition occurring right now between different types of lenders is good for entrepreneurs.

Debt financing provides entrepreneurs with the ability to run their companies as they see fit and maintain control. Banks generally do not want to be involved in the running of companies; they leave that in the hands of the entrepreneurs who are investing the skill set and sweat equity in their companies. If the business becomes successful, the entrepreneur does not have to share the riches with investors; he or she can reap the profits while paying back the agreed upon amount of money to the bank each month.

Another benefit of debt financing is that the interest paid on the loan is tax-deductible.

In the past few years, Small Business Administration backed loans have become vital to the growth of small businesses. They generally offer more favorable interest rates than traditional bank loans. Indeed, debt financing has help countless successful small businesses get off the ground.

Yes, there are some disadvantages of debt financing. If you borrow too much money, the interest payments will be substantial. On the other hand, if you do not borrow enough, you have to go back to the bank and ask for more money. This is never good; the loan officer begins to wonder if you wasted the money, misappropriated funds or did not plan properly. None of these scenarios makes it likely that the bank would be willing to give more money.

Mark Cuban says that:

Most people aren’t willing to put in the time to work smart; they don’t recognize how much work is involved. If you start a business, you’d better know your industry and your company better than anyone in the whole wide world because you are competing.

If Cuban truly believes this, he has little faith in our capitalist system that supports the start and the growth of small businesses. Further, an entrepreneur will not receive money from funders if he or she cannot articulate the startup’s competitive advantages in the local market place. This information should be outlined in the business plan.

I disagree with his assertion that companies “fail from lack of brains and a lack of effort, but not for a lack of capital.” I know first-hand how challenging it can be to secure a small business loan because I speak with numerous entrepreneurs and potential funders every week. They are dedicated and hard working. Many times the reason why they cannot get off the ground is because they do not know how to go about applying for a small business loan.

Fortunately, nowadays, there are services that match potential borrowers with small business lenders.

The post Small Business Owners Are Not Morons Mark Cuban appeared first on Small Business Trends.

How to Use Hangouts to Collaborate with Anyone, Anywhere, On Any Device

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 08:00 AM PDT

In April 2013, Gmail celebrated its 9th birthday. With well over 400 million active users, many of which work in small businesses, it's easy to see how many important interactions are taking place every day from within the application. Although email is a very important form of communicating with employees, partners and customers, there are other channels that can help us collaborate more effectively in order to build stronger relationships.

Iska Hain, a member of Google's Unified Communications Team, joins us to share how you can extend your Gmail interactions into group video calls using Google Hangouts, whether you're in the office, on your laptop or on your mobile device (Android or iOS). She fills us in on what you need to do a live broadcast with Google Hangouts On Air… all for free.

* * * * *

google hangouts Small Business Trends: Can tell us what are Hangouts and how do they help small businesses, or any kind of businesses, in communicating with customers?

Iska Hain: This May we actually launched a new Hangouts app, which is available on desktop, Android and Apple devices. It basically allows you to connect with anyone at any time for free. It is all about unifying your communications across all your devices and your platforms, so that you can talk to people that you care about.

Small Business Trends: Can talk about how Hangouts go hand in hand with Gmail?

Iska Hain: Previously in Gmail, you were able to chat using Google Talk. We have now made it possible for you to upgrade the chat experience to use Hangouts. If you're having a conversation with someone in your Gmail account on your desktop, you are able to message someone else in their Gmail account on their desktop or on their device, whether it is an Android or an Apple device.

It really allows you to talk to any of your friends or your family members no matter what device they have, for free.

Small Business Trends: What are some other things that Hangouts offers that small businesses might not know about?

Iska Hain: One of our primary goals with Hangouts was unifying communications across device platforms and people. Google is all about making you insanely productive and trying to take away the cumbersome effort you have to put into thinking about how you are going to communicate with someone – via text, or SMS or email.

You can use Hangouts for free in Gmail. If you are a Google Apps customer, you can also use Hangouts. It makes things like group communication better so you can easily toggle between a one-on-one conversation with someone, to a group conversation by adding someone's name or email address. You can also easily toggle from having an instant messaging conversation or text conversation, to a live video call by clicking on a video button. It automatically invites anyone that is in that conversation to Hangout.

Your Hangout conversations are synched across devices. So if I am having a conversation with you in Gmail and I decide to switch to my Tablet or to my Android device, that conversation follows me from each device. I can pick up right where I left off and I can see all of the history right in front of me. This is really convenient and it is a great solution.

Small Business Trends: I live in Gmail at this point. Anything I can do that is integrated with Gmail helps me further my collaboration in communications with customers and prospects.

I know you are in the millennial generation and your style of communication may be a little different. Are able to foster communications for both the old guy, like me, but also with young folks?

Iska Hain: Absolutely. I grew up with a smartphone, SMS and instant messaging. Staying connected to my friends and family has always been really important to me. Even when I came to work at Google, l wanted to find a solution that allows me to communicate with my colleagues, just like I will with my friends or with my family.

Google runs on Hangout so it was built into our culture from the very beginning.

Small Business Trends: Let's talk about some of the video aspects that you mentioned.

Iska Hain: What's great about Hangouts is I can message someone in a Hangout and say, 'Hey are you still free, do you want to chat?' And they can say, 'yes or no.' If they say 'yes,' I can easily click the video icon and it will invite them to a video call. That style of communication, being able to seamlessly jump from a text communication to a face-to-face communication, feels very real and very genuine.

Those conversations that happen in Hangouts, the ability for the screen to flip to which ever person is talking and the ability to use Apps and doc sharing, YouTube sharing or screen sharing, makes that interaction very productive, very efficient. The fact that it is all free and it works across all devices makes it a really great solution. Both in your personal life and your professional life.

Small Business Trends: So you can actually start a Hangout session on one device and carry it over to another device? Say a lot of people maybe start out on a conference call on the phone or in front of the computer, but they have to run. You can use Hangouts to do that right?

Iska Hain: That's right. Hangouts are actually the only free, stable and multi-wave video-calling product on the market. Google really just wants to make it easy for anyone to have the same conversation that they would in the hallway at work or at home at the dinner table – online.

Small Business Trends: Are you able to see these online interactions that you have later?

Iska Hain: Yes, if you decide to save your Hangout history, you are able to go back and open up a Hangout conversation with anybody and see that conversation. It goes pretty far back. You can see how your relationship has evolved over time.

Small Business Trends: I have hit hard on the Gmail angle when it comes to Hangouts, but can you do a lot from Google Plus as well?

Iska Hain: That's right. In order to have group video calls, if you are not a Google Apps customer and you are using Hangouts within Gmail, you need to have a Google Plus profile. We recommend having a Google Plus profile in order to get the most out of the Hangouts experience. If you are an Apps customer, you can have a Hangout with up to 15 people versus 10 people, which comes standard with having a Google Plus profile.

Small Business Trends: If you are doing a Hangout On Air, do you also have to have a YouTube account?

Iska Hain: If you have a YouTube account setup and you decide to do a Hangout On Air, which allows you to broadcast that conversation on your Google Plus profile or your Google Plus page, you do need to have a YouTube account.

The video of the broadcast of that Hangout will be automatically sent to your YouTube account. You are able to go back and edit the Hangout or share the Hangout using that YouTube URL and embed it on a third party site if you like. So yes, YouTube and Hangouts On Air there are integrated.

Small Business Trends: Hangouts is a way you can communicate across a number of platforms and across a number of devices. In certain instances, you can do video conversation for up to 10 or 15 people at a time. The bottom line is, you can use this one platform to do all of these different styles of communications across any number of those devices?

Iska Hain: You got it, that is right.

Small Business Trends: Iska, where can people learn more of about Hangouts?

Iska Hain: You can download the Hangouts app in the app store or from Google Play. You can also download Hangouts as an extension from Chrome, or you can upgrade to Hangouts in your Gmail by clicking on your name in the GChat roster and clicking the upgrade to Hangouts option.

Small Business Trends: You can download the Hangouts app from the Apple store and get it on your iPhone as well, right?

Iska Hain: That's right. Folks that are on iPhones and folks that are on Android can now talk to each other via video chat for free, which is the first time this has happened. So we are very excited.

This interview on how to use Google Hangouts is part of the One on One interview series with thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This transcript has been edited for publication.

The post How to Use Hangouts to Collaborate with Anyone, Anywhere, On Any Device appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Are Exit Interviews Out of Fashion?

Posted: 05 Jul 2013 05:00 AM PDT

exit interviews

My wife just left her job after 20 years for a great new opportunity. As we were packing up her stuff, I was surprised to hear that her employer hadn’t scheduled an exit interview. Then again, thinking back, I don’t think any of my former employers did either.

It’s one of those things I’ve heard of, but I don’t think I know anyone who’s ever gotten one.

Are they something that was once popular but now out of fashion?

Anyway, my wife was mostly happy at her last job, but I think she had a few suggestions her old employer would’ve found useful or at least illuminating. And just the idea of an exit interview was enough to generate this cartoon.

The post Are Exit Interviews Out of Fashion? appeared first on Small Business Trends.