Take a Look: Latest Small Business Events List |  |
- Take a Look: Latest Small Business Events List
- YouTube Bans, Affiliate Firings and More
- 25 Tips for Using Instagram in Your Business
- Why Authors Need to Read “Your First 1000 Copies”
| Take a Look: Latest Small Business Events List Posted: 14 Sep 2013 04:00 PM PDT Looking for good small business events? Or how about contests and awards for small businesses? We’ve got a curated list for you. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar. Featured Events, Contests and Awards
This isn’t Social Media 101: this is a celebration of how social media practitioners are creating exciting new ways to connect people within and outside the enterprise – customers, employees, managers and leaders. It’s an exploration of how we’re shaking up traditional organizations and communication channels to create a brand new form of business: the Social Enterprise. Sept 15 – 17, 2013 Hashtag: #socialshakeup
Join us at Small Biz Big Things in New York City for an evening of learning, networking, fun and discussion as we explore how small business owners can do very big things through innovation. Laggard companies are being crushed. Companies who can strategically innovate are being created and growing. Will your business thrive? Will it survive? Seth Godin will do a rare Q&A session, answering your burning questions about small business, marketing and doing work that matters. Carly Strife, of Barkbox (and previously with Uber) will present her real life, hands on experiences, and best practices in how small companies can profitably innovate and grow in the midst of challenging market forces and intense competition.
This fresh, one-day conference brings together amazing women entrepreneurs, both on and off the stage. Our incredible speaker lineup will help you learn how to get funding for growth, make your brand stronger, and turn your idea into a company. Pitch journalists live on stage with our media panel. You’ll also hear the REAL behind-the-scenes stories from founders including JJ Ramberg, Janine Popick , Pamela O’Hara and more. SEATING IS LIMITED.
Modern technology and empowered customers have changed the way small business owners market their business and communicate with prospects and customers. Hear from our expert panelists on how the most successful small business owners are navigating through these changes and how you can turn prospects and customers into raving fans. Panelists: More Events
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This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology. The post Take a Look: Latest Small Business Events List appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| YouTube Bans, Affiliate Firings and More Posted: 14 Sep 2013 12:30 PM PDT
It’s time again for our weekly community news and announcement roundup. Whether it’s a new trend, a new website launch or a particular insight from entrepreneurs and small business owners across the Web, you’ll find it here. We’d love to have you participate. If you have a suggestion or a post you think would make a good addition to the kinds of stories we share here each week, check below to learn how you can get involved. Now let’s get started. One Online Entrepreneur Talks About Being Banned from YouTube (EasyM6) We hear these stories every once in a while. Though those who tell them haven’t always lost their YouTube account. Sometimes they’ve been shut out of Twitter or banned from Facebook. But Liudas Butkus’s story of getting booted off the video site is an important reminder. Pay serious attention to a site’s terms of service and never count on a third party channel for your entire business. Think Before Firing Under Performing Affiliates (Affiliate Marketing Blog) And while we’re on the subject of giving people the boot, affiliate marketing consultant Geno Prussakov talks about how to deal with affiliates who aren’t bringing in sales. If you have an online business with an affiliate program in which only 5 to 10 percent of sign-ups are active, getting rid of the rest may not be the answer. Choose the Affiliate Program Best Suited for Your Niche (SiteSpring) From the standpoint of a website owner seeking a possible revenue model, it’s also important to pick the right affiliate program in the first place. Blogger Salini Dinesh gives this overview of some of the programs you might consider. But when it comes to evaluating the best option, Dinesh insists it isn’t the affiliate network you choose, but how well it fits your niche. Don’t Let Your Online Business Venture Put You in the Hospital (BizSugar Blog) Crazy as it might sound, entrepreneurs sometimes push themselves too hard. Yes, it’s important to have the drive necessary to be a success. But it’s also critical to have some balance and stability. In this post, Dhiraj Das, founder of Linktons.com, tells us how driving himself too hard and with too many projects in his online venture became unhealthy. Facebook Makes Promotion Efforts Easier. (Blue Powered by Cox Business) Old regulations on the world’s biggest social media site were once pretty strict when it came to online promotions. Specifically, businesses were forbidden from hosting any contest or giveaway directly on Facebook. This forced most businesses to rely on third party apps, writes Adam Naide Executive Director of Social Media at Cox Communications. But all of that has now changed. Social Media Success is Not a Matter of Luck. (Jenn’s Trends) Last week, just in time for Friday the Thirteenth, Jenn Herman posted this clever warning. Don’t make the mistake of relying on good luck for social media success. Like every other business strategy, social media marketing is hard work. Don’t be superstitious about your social media efforts, Herman advises. Mistakes Your Business Might Already Be Making With Social Media (XEN) Assuming you are already using sites like Facebook and Twitter, here are things some companies still get wrong. Tech writer Kerry Butters shares some of the obvious mistakes. These are things like just failing to post enough or failing to respond to comments. But there are also subtler mistakes any business can make that negate the benefits of a digital presence. Follow the Golden Rule (Ace Concierge) Forget all the advice you’ve heard from social media gurus out there. Suzie Poirier insists the best tip for building a great community is the simplest. Treat others as you would like to be treated. Above all, Poirier advises, “acknowledge the voice of your community.” Have conversations with your audience. Thank them when they share your content with others. The Absolute Number of Social Media Followers Doesn’t Matter Author and social media expert Gary Vaynerchuk is all fired up in this video shared by Kumail Hemani of the BizSugar community. Vaynerchuk is commenting about the impact of a recent British Airways passenger who paid for a sponsored tweet to complain about the airline’s service. The number of followers you have on social media doesn’t matter, says Vaynerchuk. It’s whether your message reaches the right people. Hope you’ve enjoyed yet another edition of the small biz community insights roundup. We’d like to continue improving, so let us have your comments and tell us what you’d like to see in upcoming posts. Also, if you’d like to suggest a story, please email us at sbtips@gmail.com or share it on BizSugar.com. If we think it would be interesting to our community, we’ll use it. Thanks for reading! News Photo via Shutterstock The post YouTube Bans, Affiliate Firings and More appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| 25 Tips for Using Instagram in Your Business Posted: 14 Sep 2013 09:00 AM PDT
Instagram is a social channel that let’s you snap photos (and now video), add creative filters and share them with your followers. The photos can be posted not only on Instagram, but on social channels like Facebook and Twitter too. Below are some tips from Instagram users for how to effectively use Instagram for business as a tool to build your brand. Getting Started with Instagram for Business1. Think before you click. Ask yourself the following questions: What is the purpose for using Instagram? What is the tone and style we want to portray through our images? 2. Become a regular user first. It’s always a good idea to experience Instagram as a regular user so you can see how people are using it. That will provide ideas for tying this platform into other social media marketing efforts. 3. Think about your product. What do you sell or what do you use to sell your services? Without being too promotional, you can get your followers engaging with your product. Instagram is about everyday people taking everyday pictures. 4. Establish a customer profile. Brands can establish their customer profile by carefully monitoring the types of content posted by their followers. For example, a brand noticing that a majority of its followers post images of shoes. 5. Coordinate with social media campaigns. How can you use Instagram in conjunction with your existing Facebook and Twitter activities? 6. Think strategically about your posts. Just because Instagram is a series of visuals doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think strategically about what you should post and when. 7. Choose your handle carefully. When setting up your Instagram account, where possible, use the same username as your Twitter account. So when your content is tagged and shared on Twitter the @username links to your Twitter bio. Choose the Right Content8. Show off your products with sneak previews. Clothing companies and even publishers may use Instagram to give "sneak previews" of new additions prior to launch date. 9. Remember that cuteness sells. It is a well-known fact that cute animals with funny quotes are among the category of images most likely to go viral. People like images that create a visceral reaction. 10. Announce new hires, promote your culture. Instragram is a great place to announce new hires, profile your staff and even promote your organization as a trendy, fun place to work. 11. Showcase your customers and service. Virgin America does a great job of giving their followers a taste of the company on Instagram. They showcase their customers and other fun things they are doing to make a person’s in-flight experience more enjoyable. Use Instagram Filters Effectively12. Begin with a thoughtful approach. You might not think that choosing one filter over another could lead to a noticeable shift in engagement, but it does. Using the right filter can create up to a 60% increase in average engagement. 13. Consider your location first. Instagram is great for making a standard scenery shot look much more appealing. Intensify the color with filters like Hefe, which can turn the average sunset into something spectacular. 14. Show a sense of style. Simple rule: If the photo does not look good before you select an Instagram filter, it will not look good afterwards. Instagram's filters help give your great photo an artsy and even professional look. However, you must make sure that the end product fits in with the style your company is trying to portray. 15. Lo-Fi is perfect for restaurants. The high saturation makes the colors immediately richer, and an average sandwich snap can have followers heading down for a meal in no time. 16. Experiment with retro. Instagram has a lot of filters which change photos into images of times gone by. Everyone likes a 'do you remember when…' moment. Think about the history of your brand, and use Instagram to show users a visual depiction of it. More Tips for Using Instagram17. Follow a defined theme. There are so many things companies can take photos of, so it is vital to think things through before you jump in. Stand alone style photos will not be as powerful as photos that are part of a collection or that follow a defined theme. 18. Show your brand’s personality. Businesses should look at their use of Instagram similar to the way they use other social media platforms. There should be a nice balance of showing the brand’s personality but also giving the followers information about the brand. 19. Don’t just advertise. Instagram is a great place to showcase shots of your products, services and how-tos. Of course, you don’t want to turn your feed into a series of display ads. Find a creative way to incorporate your products and brand into images people will want to see and share. 20. Calls to action work well. Don't be afraid to use calls to action on Instagram. Users will quickly scroll past messaging buried in the comments, but by placing your call to action on the image itself you're more likely to grab their attention. 21. Apply the 80/20 rule. Pictures of their products, products in use, happy customers and the environment in which the products can, and are, used are all sound marketing techniques. But those should only be a portion though of what a business shares to Instagram or any other social network. Approximately 20%. The other 80% of the content shared should be of other people, other things, other scenarios… things that relate to your business but aren’t images of your business specifically. 22. Examine your feedback. Definitely – you can learn a lot by what customers comment on and share, how they tag photos and more. 23. Invite guest contributors. Inviting users to contribute images to your Instagram feed is an easy way to collect content and generate buzz. Call for entries that fit a specific theme and ask users to include a branded hashtag in their posts. 24. Use hashtags for branding. Hashtags are rapidly becoming a cross-platform social media currency. They originated on Twitter and are now used on Google Plus, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Facebook. 25. Remain Loyal to your brand. Marketers who choose to add Instagram to their social media marketing tool box should remember to remain loyal to their brand image. Brands should never forget that everything they post represents their brand’s promise to consumers. Introduce a Video ElementFinally, as we mentioned earlier, Instagram has recently added video to its features. Here Amy Schmittauer of Vlog Boss Studios shares some simple tips for using it effectively. A big thanks to the experts contributing to the above Instagram marketing tips: - Greg Fry, Founder of Careers Coach 1, 5, 7, 8, 10, 14, 17 - Sharon Hurley Hall, Sharon Hurley Hall · Professional Web Content Writer and Blogger 2, 22, 24 - Carla Mai Froggatt, digital marketing manager for Steel City Marketing 3, 9, 13, 15, 16 - Genia Stevens, President and Chief Marketing Officer, Genia Stevens & Associates 4, 25 - Rachel Sprung of Rachel Sprung on Marketing 6, 11, 18 - Janelle Vreeland, Social Media Content Developer at HY Connect and author at Lonely Brand Blog 12, 19 - Katherine Leonard, Social Media Content Developer at HY Connect and author at Lonely Brand Blog 20, 23 - Mike Allton, The Social Media Hat 21 Image: Instagram The post 25 Tips for Using Instagram in Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
| Why Authors Need to Read “Your First 1000 Copies” Posted: 14 Sep 2013 06:00 AM PDT
That’s certainly true if you self publish. It’s also true for books published through a traditional publisher. If you’re depending on the publisher to market your book for you, while you kick back to collect royalty checks, plan to be disappointed. Unless you are already a household name, it’s going to be up to you to actively drive book sales. Your work doesn’t end once the book is written. In some ways, you’re just getting started. That’s where “Your First 1000 Copies: The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Your Book” comes in. This is a compact guide for authors who have recently written a book, are writing a book, or are planning to write one soon. This resource book by author Tim Grahl is short. Amazon says 147 pages, but the electronic epub-format copy I got listed it at 76 pages. Regardless, you can read it in one sitting, in under two hours. However, it’s not the kind of book you should read once and set aside. If you do that, you will not get value out of it. You’ll be skimming over points that you should be pondering and figuring out how to apply to build your book marketing strategy. Instead, you should pore over this book — again and again. Squeeze every bit of juice out of it. Make notes. Set it aside so that the ideas sink in, then come back to it. As you re-read it multiple times, things will start to click. You will get a sense for how to apply it to your own book marketing. What’s Inside “Your First 1000 Copies”The premise of Your First 1000 Copies is that you need a system for marketing your book. Without a system, you’ll likely fail because your efforts will be sporadic or spent on the wrong things. You won’t maximize natural opportunities to sell your book. This system is straight forward. The author calls it the Connection System, and it consists of these parts:
Nothing earth shattering about that, right? Well, selling a book doesn’t necessarily need to be earth shatteringly different. In fact, that’s really part of the author’s point. He says book marketing is about “systems, systems, systems.” It’s about setting up a system to market your book, and working that system with the right marketing tools, consistently over a period of time. One of the things I liked about this book is the style. It’s written in an easy to read style. It has anecdotes and brief examples using well-known authors. It tells you some of their experiences growing an email list or writing blog articles (or not). Another helpful thing is that every section ends with the key points summarized in bullet points. I consider this book a strategy starter. In other words, it’s the kind of book to kick start your own strategy for selling your book. You’re not going to get a “plug and play” or one-size-fits-all marketing plan all wrapped up in a pretty bow. You’ll have to put that together. But what it does do is lay out a framework for how to structure your marketing plan. It gives you a way of thinking about your book marketing, and identifies the essential elements, so that you can create that marketing system. It’s up to you to flesh out your plan and decide exactly what goes in it. About The AuthorTim Grahl, the author of Your First 1000 Copies, is someone who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to book marketing. Tim and his firm have worked with a number of best-selling authors: Daniel Pink, Pamela Slim, Daniel Ariely, the Heath Brothers, Ramit Sethi and more. It’s not that he just happened to work with a few authors. Rather, authors ARE his business. Tim and the firm he founded, Out:think Group, are 100% focused on helping authors market their books. That’s their niche. On his website it says, “We’ll teach you how to build a passionate fan base and sell a lot of books. We’ll also build the platform you need to make it happen.” Tim and I go back a ways, before he got into author marketing. We hired him, first for a few hours a month and then gradually for more time, to do our Web development here at Small Business Trends. We worked with him until he and his firm made the shift into author marketing. In the book he talks about the conscious choice he made to focus on author marketing. He orchestrated that shift with a visit to the South by Southwest Conference. It’s an inspiring story for any entrepreneur who wants to change his or her business model. Resources for AuthorsOn the author’s website, he includes free resources for authors. One resource I highly recommend is “The Insider's System to Book Marketing.” This is an 18-page PDF download that contains a checklist of what you need to have in place to market a book. Thorough! Tim is also the author of the My Books plugin for WordPress that helps you market your books on your WordPress site. While I haven’t used the plugin, I can attest to Tim’s skill. He and his team created custom plugins for Small Business Trends in the past. For some fun, check out the Book Launch Journal on his resources page. It is a behind-the-scenes look at launching a self-published book. Not only is it fun to read, but it will give you clues about what to expect. Who This Book is ForThis book is ideal for non-fiction authors, especially those who write business or self-help books. It is for new authors, those who are planning to write a book, those who are in the process of writing a book, and established authors who want to amp up the marketing for their existing books. To get value out of this resource, you’ll have to be serious about marketing your book(s). You have to be willing to put in time and some money toward your marketing efforts. The advice does not require spending huge bucks, but it’s also not about “free” marketing. To market a book today, you need a strategy and must be willing to put resources toward achieving that strategy — people, marketing tools, technology. That said, Grahl’s system can be used by entrepreneur-authors on a budget, provided you are willing to dedicate some money and a lot of elbow grease. It’s currently on sale for just $3.99 for the Kindle version on Amazon. That’s less than the cost of a big Mocha Frappuccino at Starbucks. Whereas the beverage will be gone in an hour, what you’ll learn from Your First 1000 Copies will stick with you. Doesn’t your book launch deserve at least that much? Get Your First 1000 Copies. The post Why Authors Need to Read “Your First 1000 Copies” appeared first on Small Business Trends. |
One of the dirty little secrets of the book publishing industry is that it’s easier to get published than ever before — but authors are mostly on their own when it comes to marketing their books.| You are subscribed to email updates from Small Business Trends To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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