Come On Now! Attend One of These Events Or Participate In a Contest |  |
- Come On Now! Attend One of These Events Or Participate In a Contest
- From the Community: Social Media Might Not Work for You After All
- 4 Different Pinterest Mindsets: Can Knowing These Improve Your Marketing?
- Kick Ass Social Commerce for E-preneurs
| Come On Now! Attend One of These Events Or Participate In a Contest Posted: 08 Mar 2014 04:45 PM PST You know you need to keep your skills sharp, right? Things change in business, and you don’t want to be left behind. So be sure to check out these events where you can learn and grow as a business person. Or enter a contest or award to earn valuable resources and potentially get big publicity for your business. To see a full list of curated events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies, or to submit your own listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar. Featured Events, Contests and Awards
Adding a survey or form to your site has never been easier! Strengthen your brand, bring traffic back to YOUR website (or keep them there longer), and more! Website feedback Lead gen contact customer surveys See the options in action! Put it on you calendar now!
AM Days is the must attend event for affiliate managers who are responsible for their company’s affiliate marketing strategy, management and operations. Whether you have an existing affiliate program or you are creating a new initiative, AMDays offers you valuable insight into how other online retailers are successfully implementing and managing their affiliate programs. Topics include: Affiliate program set up; Affiliate recruitment techniques; Affiliate marketing fraud; M-commerce; and much more.
Use the Brother CreativeCenter to create awesome marketing collateral for your business. You get a chance to win one of three Brother product prize suites each worth $500+. And your business will get valuable free publicity on BizSugar and also on Small Business Trends! What are you waiting for? Check out this contest.
#ICON14 is the eighth annual conference for small business, hosted by Infusionsoft (previously called Infusioncon). Over 3,000 attendees expected. Confirmed speakers include Seth Godin, JJ Ramberg and Peter Shankman. Hashtag: #ICON14
The Small Business Book Awards honor the best business books published in 2013, and book resources (such as cover design, copy editing and more). No fee required. Get the recognition your book or resource deserves. Nominate now through April 30, 2014! Hashtag: #BizBookAwards More Events
More Contests
This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology. The post Come On Now! Attend One of These Events Or Participate In a Contest appeared first on Small Business Trends.      |
| From the Community: Social Media Might Not Work for You After All Posted: 08 Mar 2014 12:30 PM PST It’s time again for our community news and information roundup. Each week we draw valuable news and information from the blogs we follow most and other parts of the online small business community. You’ll find some of the best below. Social Media Isn’t for Everyone Matthew Hardesty After all the hype around the importance of social media, it may be surprising to hear this. And it’s no less surprising from an expert specializing in SEO for small businesses. But in the end, Hardesty points out some pretty compelling areas where social media just won’t be helpful…at least not yet. Finding the Right Fit is Important GMR Transcription On the other hand, even if you decide social media will help your business, there’s still the format to consider. As Beth Worthy, Director of Operations for GMR, explains, picking the social media with the right fit for your business is important. Here are a few things to consider. Separate the Personal from the Professional Amadeus Consulting Seeing you dressed in your finest dance party gear may not impress your client, observes Karen O’Toole, blogger and administrative coordinator at Amadeus. Of course, it’s probably a bad idea for photos that are too compromising of you or your staff to appear anywhere on the Web. But at least keep them off your business channels. Social Can Be Local ATAK Interactive One of the first and potentially most controversial conclusions drawn by Hardesty, is that businesses focused on a small geographic local areas are less likely to benefit from social media. ATAK’s Josh Goodman and David Ephraim would almost certainly disagree. Here are some tips to increase local social followers for your business. Finding the Time to Blog Sonja Jobson We’ve mentioned before the constant suggestions in our community that blogging to help market your business and reach out to customers is critical. For those who remain concerned about finding the time, Jobson has these thoughts for greater blogging productivity. Finding the Best Time to Work Baseline There’s an important key to productivity that may escape many small business owners’ notice. That’s finding the best time to work. Lauren Licata, content marketing manager at Base, makes these suggestions to some positive response from the BizSugar community. There’s No Place for Heroes David R. Kiger But even after you’ve done all you can to maximize efficiency, in the end, you’ll need to depend on others to succeed. The first point in Kiger’s post, heavy with sports metaphors, emphasizes the importance of not trying to go it alone. So creating a team, no matter how small, is key. Deciding What to Delegate Houston Virtual Assistant League One of the first steps in this process is to decide what jobs you don’t need to do yourself, says small business owner Christina Meade. So ask some simple questions to figure out what projects you need to handle directly and which tasks would be better handled by someone else. Learn Your ABCs Rhonda’s Virtual Office Once you’ve decided what to delegate, a virtual assistant is one possible option. That’s especially if you want to delegate stuff like going through your email and updating your Twitter and Facebook accounts. VAs have clear advantages over employees. Rhonda Holscher has a whole alphabet of reasons why. Are There Tools You Simply Don’t Understand? Robert Brady Yes, believe it or not, another obstacle in your path may be an aspect of your business you just don’t understand. As Robert Brady of Righteous Marketing explains in this post shared on the BizSugar community, this usually has nothing to do with your core business. But it may have to do with tools that can help your business grow. If you’d like to help make our roundups better, let us know about content or news we might want to add in future updates. Send us an email at sbtips@gmail.com to tell us more. Or, like Lauren Licata and Robert Brady, share your content on the BizSugar community. It’s the place we routinely look for the freshest and most authentic small business voices. Reading Photo via Shutterstock The post From the Community: Social Media Might Not Work for You After All appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
| 4 Different Pinterest Mindsets: Can Knowing These Improve Your Marketing? Posted: 08 Mar 2014 09:00 AM PST To effectively use Pinterest as part of your company's marketing strategy, you have to understand its users and the different Pinterest mindsets they carry. Pinterest Researcher Larkin Brown recently shared some insights on the Pinterest Business Blog about the different types of users on the site. She said that Pinterest users display four main mindsets:
Main Pinterest Mindsets1) The "maybe I could" visitor is exploring a new interest or considering starting a new project or hobby. 2) The "I'm just looking" visitor normally browses without a particular goal in mind. 3) The "I'm narrowing it down" user has more of a defined need but isn't necessarily ready to commit just yet. 4) And the "I know what I want" user knows what they're looking for and they have a short time frame to find it. Social Media Expert and CEO of Keysplash Creative Susan Gunelius agrees with the four classifications, but says they should look pretty familiar to marketers. She said in a phone interview with Small Business Trends:
In his post, Brown states that different pins can trigger certain modes with consumers who don't necessarily have a specific goal in mind when visiting Pinterest. And and a single pin could even trigger different reactions from different users:
For that reason, Gunelius said it's important to build a network and focus on your target audience as a whole. Though it might be tempting to go after the "I know what I want" crowd who could be more likely to translate into quick sales, that means you'd have to catch the right person at the exact right time. Instead, she said brands should focus on consumers throughout the buying process who, at some point, will get to that "I know what I want" stage:
Pinterest Photo via ShutterstockMaybe Photo via Shutterstock, Choosing Photo via Shutterstock, Just Looking Photo via Shutterstock, Determined Photo via Shutterstock The post 4 Different Pinterest Mindsets: Can Knowing These Improve Your Marketing? appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
| Kick Ass Social Commerce for E-preneurs Posted: 08 Mar 2014 06:00 AM PST
When it comes to eCommerce, there's no better source than John "ColderICE!" Lawson (@ColderICE). His company 3rd Power Outlet has executed more than 300,000 online transactions resulting in more than $25 million dollars in sales. So as a top power seller – he knows what sells. I was excited to receive a review copy of his first book, Kick Ass Social Commerce for E-preneurs: It's Not About Likes – It's About Sales. Written with Debra Schepp, Kick Ass will show small business retailers how social media kicks eCommerce and revenue into high gear. Lawson's straight-no-chaser style will help your business tell any poor strategist to kick rocks if they do not know their strategy. The book is divided into two sections:
That second part sparks an image of a needle pulling thread, because it stitches together the right aspects of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and WordPress that relates to eCommerce. You'll organize your eCommerce so that your customers feel engaged and enticed to shop. Kick Ass especially reads well for those entrepreneurs who woefully ill conceive eCommerce as just “stick-a-product-online-and-my-problems-are-solved” ordeal. Talk to Your CustomersThe real deal, according to Lawson, is that social should be a natural part of your retail strategy. Commerce was built on "products, consumers, manufacturers, and retailers" and he works the opening chapter to remind businesses to work on what connects with consumers:
If you've seen ColderICE's online hangouts or workshops, you know Lawson makes for a perfect motivator for those who are on autopilot online, and need an organized methodology to connect to customers. He can get to the heart of what you should do to be successful. Breaking The Ice and IceMaker segments explain how your "social" should compliment your "commerce." Check out this recommendation about what to seek while connecting to customers:
A later IceMaker segment gives specific questions that can be asked. The suggestions in Kick Ass are actionable, and help to show what matters to emphasize with people. From Flo the Progressive Insurance lady to Madame C.J. Walker, Kick Ass presents many personalities to illustrate that the business objective to connect to customers has not changed radically just because digital media is involved. That concept brings the best aspects of commerce alive and reminds entrepreneurs of their mission to provide meaningful services. Needle Your Social Media Thread to Stitch a Working Plan TogetherThe book does not cover every nuance of social media – but that's the beauty of it. Thanks to Lawson's experience and "Yup-I-really-did-it" sage advice, you won't waste a lot of time on a specific feature. For example, the book notes several of the most useful applications for Facebook, a great choice, given media articles and debates about unlocking successful eCommerce that engages Facebook fans. I love the following note about Facebook Ads in a Breaking The Ice segment:
I love it because it dovetails an underlying theme – businesses mistakenly underinvest and never establish an effective budget. Yes, spend more than that $50 ad credit from your website hostplan. Ultimately, you'll know how to manage to your Google+ page and create useful YouTube videos with respect to commerce. I applaud Lawson and Schepp for their approach with social media – choosing the lens without necessarily choosing the camera. That sounds like a job for any author, but Lawson and Schepp execute that mission well. I can see this book complimenting analytics resources through encouraging ways to arrange your presence and deciding what's best for your business. That perspective leads to something more valuable: To get going and select the right technological support that underpins your eCommerce business. Get this book (bonus insights from the authors are available online). You should also check out the foreword from Small Business Trends Founder and Publisher, Anita Campbell, as well as Lawson's bio. When you learn more about "ColderICE" you'll read about a genuine American success story that has been a gift to the world. Kick some eCommerce ass with Lawson's strategies – and tell anyone who doesn't believe in social commerce to go kick rocks. The post Kick Ass Social Commerce for E-preneurs appeared first on Small Business Trends.     |
You have to love a book that gets your business out of the social media “like” zone – that place where you have a lot of likes but a little revenue. Arriving to that place means being savvy about social media usage.| 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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