Small Business Folder

Social Media is definitely a big thing right now.  Especially when it comes to small business.  There are lots of great social networking sites online that allow you to be social with your customers and help you keep track of your brand.  Just when you thought you’d tried all of the top social networking sites, Google+ enters the building.  This new network is Google’s latest attempt to challenge Facebook and Twitter to Social Media supremacy.  Take a look at the Google’s official introduction to Google+ video by clicking this link:

Google+ Project

Currently, Google+ does not allow business profiles (if you try to create one, the profile will be deleted promptly by the Google+ fairies).  This means you need to have a “work around” if you want to promote your business.  If you are considering how to use Google+ to market your product or services, there are a few basic guidelines you should follow that would apply to any new social networking platform.

 1. Before you dive head first into Google+, you should step back and observe how others in your industry are using it to market their brand.  How are they reaching their target audience? Make note of the industry leaders, as you will definitely want to add them to one of your circles.

2. Do a little preliminary research and find out what’s being talked about in your niche market on Google+.  As of today, there isn’t a way to search topics in Google+  but you can use the regular Google search engine using these search parameters:

>”SEARCH TOPIC” site:plus.google.com<

What are they searching for? What makes them happy? What ticks them off?

3. Participate in conversations and offer your expert knowledge when appropriate. If you’ve followed steps 1 and 2, you know what your niche market wants, it’s just up to you to provide it.

The social media realm is going to continue to grow.  If you are having doubts as to the significance of Google+, keep this in mind:  The Google+ network reached 20 million users in the first three weeks.  It took Facebook six months to reach 30 million users.  With that type of growth, small business owners probably shouldn’t ignore it.

Already on Google+? How are you using it to market your brand? Leave your comments below.  Click here to add me to your circles!

Your headlines could easily be the very first thing your potential customer will notice when visiting your blog.  Marketing experts will tell you that your headline is one of the most important aspects of any effective marketing piece.  The ability to write enticing and inviting headlines for your blog posts is a necessity.  Below are 3 tips to help you get started:

1. Touch their emotions

Some psychologists suggest that our emotions have a direct influence on our buying decisions. This means in order to grab a potential client/customers attention, you need to write headlines that resonate with them on an emotional level.  For example – “Become a Marketing Genius in 5 Easy Steps”, this headline sparks the readers desire to be smart and powerful.

You can also tap into the readers’ desire to feel:

• Pampered
• Attractive
• Sexy
• Confident
• Assertive
• Productive
• Wealthy
• Respected
• Safe

2. Use Active Language

For your headlines to be compelling, you must use active language - words that show movement and command attention. Example: “Stop the Cigarette Cravings in 5 Easy Steps”, is a decent headline, except it doesn’t command action or tap into your readers emotions.  On the other hand, “Defeat Your Cigarette Cravings in 5 Simple Steps” is a powerful headline that taps into their desire to feel assertive and powerful.  The word “Defeat” is the key.

3. Make Them Feel Special and Important

Using the word “You” in your headlines will make your readers feel as if you are talking directly to them and are genuinely interested in helping them solve their problems and reach their goals.  The easiest way to do this is to use the word “You” instead of I, Me or We in your headlines.

Your readers are visiting your blog to find out what you can do for them.  If you are using “You” in the headlines, they will be compelled to find out exactly what you have to offer them.

More powerful headlines:

**You Can Earn $1000 a Day Following This 12 Step Program
**New Program Guarantees You Will Earn $5000 per month.
**Do You Want to Be Healthy and Slim?

Now that you know what types of headlines draw the most attention, how do you get started writing these fantastic headlines?

Step One – Get to know your audience. The more you know about your audience, the easier it will be to create headlines that touch them emotionally.

Step Two – How can your products or services help your potential client’s life or business? For example, if you sell health foods and vitamins and you’ve discovered that your audience is worried about weight loss and fitness you may want to write a headline that points out how your products work with their fitness program to help them reach their weight loss goals.

Step Three - Sit down with a pen and paper and brainstorm 10 to 15 possible headlines. This is not only good practice for you but it will also help you narrow down until you get to that perfect headline.  Once you have a few that you think are winners, you can test them for conversion rates to see which draw the most attention.

As a small business owner, it’s important that your time is used in the most efficient manner possible.  Running a business involves several different areas and it’s not efficient for you to try to do ‘everything’ yourself.  This is when you might want to consider outsourcing.  Outsourcing is not something that only the big companies do; all businesses – big or small – could benefit immensely from outsourcing certain  tasks.  The top 4 tasks are listed below:

1. Website/blog design

Your online presence is important and you should put just as much time into creating an enticing and user friendly website as you would a traditional brick and mortar business.  There are plenty top notch web designers out there that would be more than happy to build you a spectacular website.  But there are also other business support professionals who are skilled in this task and may be much less expensive.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

I’m sure you already know that search engine traffic is extremely important to the success of an online business.  If you want to rank high in search results, your target keywords and phrases need to be properly optimized for the search engines. This is where a skilled SEO expert would be useful.  A SEO expert will optimize your keywords, and if done correctly, increase traffic to your website.

3. Writing/blogging

Writing skills are not automatic.  Some people are better at it than others.  For those who struggle with this area, creating well written and inviting content for their website is very stressful and daunting.  This is not an area that you can afford to skimp on.  The content on your website directly impacts how well your site does with search engine ranking.  If you find yourself having serious difficulty creating decent content for your site, outsourcing to a qualified writer may be your best bet.

4. Administrative tasks

According to the Small Business Administration (SBA), small business owners spend approximately 40% of their time on administrative tasks.  Examples of these administrative tasks include accounting/billing, client follow up, webinar setup, etc.  There are lots of qualified business support specialists online who would gratefully take over these tasks for you.

Outsourcing is a great option for any business, whether big or small.  By outsourcing, you are partnering with experts in their field.  This means you can rest assured that your project will be done correctly.  This also allows you to focus on the facets of your business that you enjoy the most.

Social media has taken the world by storm! It’s a part of your business life, it’s a part of your personal life…it’s everywhere. There’s no doubt that social media will continue to change over the next few years. You can see from the stats at Nielsen Online that internet users have fiercely turned to social media.  We started paying attention to social media about seven years ago and the number of users gradually increased until February 2009 when social media use took off at an astounding rate.

This surge in growth started just as the economy started to plummet. Is it a coincidence? Maybe. Whatever the reason, ads are fast becoming more and more user driven.

Some of the more well known and prestigous websites offer tweets to paying advertisers which proves that it is possible for businesses to make some money from social media advertsing – but not by advertising themselves.  It’s not necessary that you have the reputation and authority of the Washington Post – if you have a fabulous website and choose heavily related (but not competing) ads, it might be to your businesses advantage to consider this form of advertising.

Is traditional advertsing dead?

Advertising as an industry is slowly going away; just as architectural drafting slowly disappeared in the early 90′s.  Suddenly seasoned manual draftsmen found themselves out of work after years of paying their dues and working their way up the ranks.  College students with computers and AutoCAD took over.  Businesses no longer spent money on permanent drafting staff.  They started hiring freelancers to get the work done.

If you’re one of those people who continues to resist change and is proud to say that they’ll never be caught on Facebook, you may want to rethink your decision.  Social media, particularly Facebook, has overthrown Google because now people want to search for what their friends recommend and what their friends talk about. And they find all of this using social media. Online social media drama is another big seller. This includes heated discussions on differing opinions, scandals about products or businesses and complaints about services. The flip side of this is the positive customer/client feedback your business could receive through social media.

The bottom line is you should take a closer look at social media advertising for your business.  Check out how some of the big wigs are utilizing social media advertising to generate profit for their business.  Using their methods as a guide, try to develop a social media ad campaign to fit your small business needs.

If the niche market for your product or service is women in the 17-24 age group, social media should be one of the first tools you think of for marketing your small business.  Although some might say that this particular group is too broad and generic to target, it’s a fact that gender plays an important role in the marketing puzzle.

Women are generally the largest demographic using social media, especially on Facebook. My research shows that if a female subscriber trusts your expertise, they are much more likely to listen to your recommendations and purchase your products or services.  The best way to build trust with your subscribers is to focus a portion of your marketing efforts on building a personal connection with them.  The best way to do this is through the use of social media.  Of course, you don’t want to spend time leaving long comments on Facebook or sending direct messages on Twitter – that would take too much time.  You can start trying to connect with them by answering their questions and responding to their tweets on Twitter, commenting on their status updates on Facebook or leaving positive comments on their blogs.  If  you designate a portion of your time each day (i.e. 20 minutes in the morning, 20 minutes in the afternoon) to these activities, you will establish a connection with them.  It’s just a matter of time.

Compassion is key in social media advertising to women. Your ads must appeal to them through sympathy and humor as well as make them identify with your subject.  If you can accomplish this, your ads will seem more like recommendations from a friend than just a generic product advertisement from a random company.

In my experience with social media advertising, I’ve found that men are drawn to “logic terms” relating to statistics, measurements and competitive factors (i.e., “Does your car impress your friends?”) and women, on the other hand, seem to be more drawn to “intuitive terms” relating to feelings (i.e., “Do you feel tired alot?”).  It’s important to keep this in mind when writing your social media ads.  If you are committed to establishing the connection and make the effort to get to know your potential clients/customers, you are more likely to be successful.  *Every person is unique, but according to my research, the “intuitive/feeling” approach works best with women.

The main point to remember is that you’re more likely to gain new clients or customers from your marketing efforts (social media or otherwise) if you take the time to try to connect with them on some level.

Partnering with a virtual assistant (VA) is fast becoming a necessity for today’s small business owner and busy entrepreneur.  Major advancements in technology over the past decade have made it possible for virtual assistants to easily provide virtual business support to local small business owners as well as small business owners on the other side of the planet!  Due to today’s economy, some businesses are ready to take advantage of non-traditional ways of doing business in order to save money and partnering with a virtual assistant is the next logical step.  Below are 5 reasons why should consider partnering with a VA.

Business is about making money. Let’s be honest. The main reason most people start their own business is to make money so that they can live a certain type of lifestyle.  Partnering with a virtual assistant offers you the freedom to create more profitability for your small business by allowing you more time to concentrate on building your business.  A virtual assistant can handle those administrative tasks that inevitably come with owning your own business.  This will leave you with more time to market your services and build your business reputation.

You can save money.  One of the biggest misconceptions about working with a virtual assistant is that it will be too expensive.  Partnering with a virtual assistant can help you save money one of two ways:   The first way may be of interest to you if you have been seriously thinking of hiring a traditional (on site) assistant –  you’ll pay benefits, insurance, payroll taxes, etc.   Hiring a traditional assistant also means you’d most likely need to purchase equipment, software, furniture and make space for them.  You may even have to spend money on training.  Partnering with a VA doesn’t require any of those things.  A virtual assistant bills you for time spent ONLY on your particular tasks.  No vacation, no lunch breaks and we handle our own taxes as an independent business consultant.  The second way applies to small business owners who think they’re saving money by doing everything themselves –  according to the SBA, you could be spending up to 40% of your time on administrative and routine functions.   That’s time that you could be using to enhance and market your business to gain new clients and make more money!  Those tasks can easily be delegated to a virtual assistant .  I can show you how.

Personalized and professional service. When you decide to work with a virtual assistant, you’ve decided to establish a partnership with someone whose sole priority is to make your life easier and provide the support you need to be successful.  A virtual assistant will work with you to learn your business goals and objectives and then propose a plan of action to provide that support to you.  Most virtual assistants will offer a retainer payment plan for their services and this means that, based on your specific needs, you can retain their services in 10, 20 or 40 hour increments per month.  Retainer plans usually offer a significant discount over normal hourly rates.

One stop shop. Your virtual assistant is an expert administrative professional.  They are skilled in a variety of areas including:  social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN), internet marketing (newsletter set-up and maintenance, blog creation/maintenance, webinar/tele-class setup) and regular administrative support (schedule maintenance, word-processing, document conversion).

Freedom to work from any location.  Partnering with a virtual assistant means you have the support you need no matter where you decide to work.  It doesn’t matter if you’re in Vegas for an important conference, in Florida attending an industry expo or in your home office. Thanks to today’s technology, you can “meet” with your virtual assistant via video conferencing or chat online in your own virtual office.

Partnering with a virtual assistant is a good option for today’s small business owner who needs support but isn’t ready to commit to hiring a traditional employee and it’s the perfect solution for the small business owner who only occasionally needs assistance (10-15 hours per month).  The first step to a successful VA/Client ‘partnership’ is to not think of the virtual assistant as an employee who’s there for your every beck and call.  A virtual assistant is a small business owner whose primary business is to provide business support services to other small business owners.

Do you dream of starting your own business? Do you know what skills and traits are needed to be a successful entrepreneur? More importantly, do you think you have what it takes? This article will touch on 7 of the most important traits of a successful entrepreneur.

Let’s get started.

1. Self confidence – the successful entrepreneur is noticeably confident. Self confidence is an extremely important characteristic for the successful entrepreneur. Before you start your business, you should feel confident in your abilities and your unique set of skills. When and if the time comes, the successful entrepreneur knows how to summon the drive and determination needed to achieve his dream of starting his own business.  He should be confident enough to tackle adversity and overcome any problems that could interfere with his dream.

2. Risk taker – successful entrepreneurs don’t always play it safe. They trust their instincts and often make decisions based purely on a hunch. Some of the greatest business ventures in history started from a simple “gut feeling” or “hunch”. Let’s face it, there’s always the risk of loss or failure, but the successful entrepreneur is not afraid to take that chance.

3. Fiscally fit – the successful entrepreneur is careful with his finances. He understands the value of money and is usually very particular about his expenditures for his business as well as in his personal life. He most likely learned the value of money at an early age – maybe as a teenager who mowed lawns after school or a little boy who took the neighbors trash out every evening.

4. Good Intuition – some entrepreneurs claim to “just know” (hunch) from the beginning if a new product or service is going to be a success. No, they aren’t psychic; most likely they just really pay attention to what’s going on in the world around them. They pay attention to the latest trends and are usually active in their respective industry in some way.

5. Competitive nature – the business world is highly competitive regardless of the industry you’re in. The successful entrepreneur knows he must be aggressive if he wants to achieve his dream. He doesn’t feel threatened by his competitors and is always looking for ways to make his business stand out from the crowd. He’s not afraid to work hard to be successful.

6. Honorable habits – the successful entrepreneur has a good work ethic. He welcomes suggestions and criticism from his customers or clients and diligently looks for ways to improve his business products and services based on those suggestions. He believes that good work ethic will lead to better business practices, improved business reputation and good standing among industry peers and business associates.

7. Vacation time – the successful entrepreneur recognizes the importance of leisure time. He knows when it’s time to step back to relax and spend quality time with family and friends. Taking time away from the hectic business world rejuvenates our mind and body and allows us to better deal with the stresses and strains that inevitably come with having our own business.

There you have it – 7 of the most important traits of a successful entrepreneur.

Keep in mind that just because you possess some or even all of these traits, there is never a guarantee that you will be successful. These are but a few of the ingredients in the recipe for success. If you happen to possess these traits, congratulations! You have a solid foundation to start building your success.

Work from Home

At one time or another in your career, you’ve probably day dreamed about being your own boss and working from home.   Maybe you want to spend more time with your family.   Maybe you just want to do what you love rather than do what someone else tells you to do.  Whatever the reason, you’re not alone.   The dream of being your own boss and working from home is one that you share with hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

My family and friends often ask me what initially drove me to start my own business.   I was at a point in my career where I was really tired of following someone else’s rules and then settling for a salary they felt my skills and experience was worth, which was usually not the same as what I felt they were worth.   I wanted to do something that I truly enjoyed and was good at.   Although I had a pretty clear picture of what I wanted to do, the road hasn’t been easy.  I still run into the occasional bump in the road.   In order to minimize the amount of obstacles you run into along the way, you should have  a written plan in place for your transition.   A plan that you can refer back to for guidance and inspiration when the road gets bumpy.

At the very minimum, your plan should answer the following questions:

• Have you researched the field you’re interested in thoroughly, including talking to someone who’s currently working in that field?
• Have you evaluated your skills and experience to determine if you are qualified to pursue a career in that field?    If you don’t currently have the skills you need, have you developed a plan to obtain those skills?
• Do you have a plan for how you’ll handle your finances until you actually start to make money from your new gig?  Depending on the industry you want to go in to, it could take several months or more before you start earning a decent salary.  Are you prepared for that?
• Have you discussed your plans with your family and gained their support?
• And, most importantly, what is your back up plan just in case things don’t work out quite as you hope?

There’s no doubt that being your own boss is very rewarding and exciting.  It can also be very stressful and demanding.   I found that it helps to be able to network with others who have also taken the plunge.  Here are a few of my favorite sites for information and networking:

Solo Entrepreneur – “Your guide to the best business building resources on the web”

WAHM – Work at Home Mom – This site has been around for a long time. Lots of great info.

Biznik – A network of small business owners and entrepreneurs. Broken down by geographic locations. Lots of great info.

Entrepreneur Connect - a community for entrepreneurs

Facebook, Twitter and You Tube..Oh My!!

Social media advertising is very popular these days.  The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has set standards that can be measured in the social media realm and alot of well known companies have used these standards as a model for their advertising efforts.  Almost all of the big time social media networks follow these standards and have made noticeable improvements within the last 18 months.  Remember when Facebook mysteriously changed its privacy policy so that they could manipulate Facebook users’ profile information, feeds, and photos.  Luckily, they were forced to update the privacy policy once more when things didn’t work out quite like they expected.

What’s the future of social media?

Some small business owners are not completely convinced of the effectiveness of social media advertising.   It’s a fact that social media advertising has increased rapidly over the last 2 years and some internet marketers have been forced re-evaluate their previous predictions.  Facebook, for example, has a rapidly growing following of approximately 350 million and more people are joining everyday.

Social media advertising will have a huge impact on local businesses thanks to the ability to create geographically targeted ads on some of the social media networks, namely Facebook.  However, the geographic advertising feature on Facebook still has a few kinks that need to be worked out: the function is only available in certain countries, and if you live outside the United States you can only target your ads by country which may not be the best option for your business.

Business owners should keep up with small business news and pay close attention to social media advertising trends.  Below are 5 trends that will probably never change in the social media arena:

1. For every one active social media viewer, there are anywhere from 6 to 14 participants brought on board by a single person.  That’s targeted participants brought in to your social network by members of your own market.
2. For those of you concerned that males and females are not represented equally in your social media campaign – here’s a tip: focus your marketing efforts on the female.  These days women have 80% of the buying power, according to various internet sources, and most men will usually be influenced by the women in their lives.  Think of it like this: most men will usually walk into the drug store and buy the same deoderant he’s bought for the past 7 years but a woman is more likely to try something new – especially if she feels a personal connection with your product advertisement.
3. Tracking your social media ad efforts is still extremely important.  No matter what social network you’re considering using, it’s important to check to see what type of tracking options are available for advertisers.  If the platform you’re interested in has limited tracking capabilities or none at all, you have two options:  1) create a tracking system yourself or 2) choose a better network.
4. The critical part of your social media advertising is the social context of your ads.  Those ads should be preceded by and linked to your social network pages (on Facebook, Twitter or wherever), videos and content.  Your goal is to give your fans a place to get together for fun and conversation.  Consider holding an occasional contest and/or some type of poll and regularly ask for feedback from your fans.   If you don’t make it interesting for your fans, your ads will simply be seen as annoying links that are easy to ignore.
5. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. This means you shouldn’t neglect other forms of advertising – email marketing, adwords, direct mail, etc.  Think of your social media advertising campaign as a supplement to your regular advertising efforts.

Make Money with Your Blog

What is a Blog?

A blog is similar to an online journal. With a blog, you are able to upload daily posts about anything that you desire. Many folks create personal blogs specifically to keep in contact with family and friends.  You can upload pictures and videos so that your friends and family members are always up to date with what’s happening in your life.   In this article, we’re going to talk about business blogs. With a business blog, you can post news about your company and other relevant information that your customers and potential customers will find interesting and valuable. To be interesting to others, your blog will need to:

• be updated regularly with fresh content for visitors
• be marketed aggressively to draw traffic
• be recognized and ranked by search engines (i.e. Google, Yahoo, Bing) so it can be found easily in web searches.

How Do I Get Started?

There are several good blogging platforms available to use. If we were discussing personal blogs, I would suggest you start with one of the free blogging platforms like Blogger.com. But since we’re talking about a business blog, my recommendation is WordPress.  WordPress is a powerful blogging platform that offers lots of flexibility and customization options utilizing themes, plugins and widgets.  WordPress is a free script that can be downloaded from www.wordpress.org.  Once you have downloaded it, you’ll need to find a webhost who supports wordpress blogs. Most reputable web hosts offer a simple, one-click installation of wordpress and/or will walk you through the process step by step so that you can be up and running in no time.

Before you begin posting content, you should decide on a theme for your blog: will it cover a specific niche?  In general, a jack-of-all-trades type of blog doesn’t do as well as one that’s focused on one specific niche. Example: If you own a small business in the hospitality industry, that could be your niche.  You would center your blog posts around this industry.  Once you have decided on a niche, it’s time to start on your content.

How do I Make Money?

In order to generate any kind of income from your blog, you need to have visitors aka traffic. This is where good marketing skills come into play. The very first thing you can do to get the word out about your new blog is to tell your family and friends. Once you are comfortable creating content for your blog and have gained followers, there are several paths you can choose to generate money from your blog. Each of these options requires research and comittment on your part. This is not a “get rich quick” scheme.

The following are the most well known avenues to generating income from your blog:

• Google AdSense
• Selling Advertising
• Affiliate Marketing
• Info Product Marketing

Google Adsense is the simplest place to start. When you sign up, you will receive code to add the google ads to your blog. The ads will be targeted towards keywords from your blog and you will be paid per click when a visitor on your site decides to click on the advertisements.

Selling ad space on your blog may be another profitable path for you to choose. In order to go this route your blog must have heavy traffic and good solid content to attract potential advertisers. Another way to generate income is to join affiliate programs and promote the products on your blog.  There are hundreds, if not thousands of products and services you can promote online.  I recommend visiting Clickbank.com to do a little bit of research to find a product or service that meshes well with your niche market.

Creating your own information products is another popular way of generating income from your blog.  Informaton products are eBooks, eCourses, and special reports.  Information products are popular because they are inexpensive to produce and there are lots of types of products you can create!

I hope reading this post has peaked your interest and you’re considering starting a blog.  It really is a great way to attract customers.  It’s a simple plan: Start with your chosen niche and then promote your blog to gain the traffic you need. Then, utilize these ideas to turn a profit.

For more detailed information, sign up for my FREE 5-day eCourse: “Blogging Basis for Beginners”.  You’ll be blogging in no time!