Social Media: Is Visibility All There Is To It?

Gone are the days when businesses just relied on neon signs, tarpaulins and pamphlets. Since the inception of social networking sites, entrepreneurs harnessed it to maintain business relationships and attract new customers. Marketing has taken on a whole new meaning once social media became prevalent, especially for small businesses.

While it is true that the more people know your business exists, the higher chance you get of being considered to fit consumer’s needs, there is still the matter of being able to establish that you can deliver what you promised you would.

You may be sending hordes of email, tweeting left and right, posting new blogs daily all in the hopes of being noticed by more of your target market but have you measured how much of an improvement your business made since you started marketing online?…

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Business and IT – Adversaries or Partners?

business relationships with ITDoes your company’s Information Technology area act more like competitors rather than partners with the business?

A poor relationship with IT can be extremely detrimental to the efficiency, productivity and cost-effectiveness of your organization.

Watch for some of these warning situations:

“¢ Everyone knows HR cuts payroll checks, and finance pays vendors. IT doesn’t always have the opportunity to regularly show its value and can be taken for granted. People don’t want to talk until something is broken, or frustration has mounted to the point of eruption. IT is regularly in a reactive mode.

“¢ IT helps make operations more efficient, but change in organizations can be stressful and can create uncertainty.…

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5 Smartphone Apps CEOs Shouldn’t Ignore

smartphone apps for CEOsEverywhere you look, people are doing something with their phones. They are either texting someone, or they are using one of the thousands of apps available.

Small business CEOs need to have access to their office even when they aren’t in them.   Here are some smartphone apps to help you out.

1. iTerminal – One thing any company needs is the ability to get paid. The iTerminal app will allow you to accept credit card payments right from your iPhone. All you have to do is enter the information in the easy to use interface and it will process the payment immediately.…

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Financial Literacy Among Entrepreneurs

financial literacyAny person who is running their own enterprise and is accountable for it can be called an entrepreneur. But not all entrepreneurs can be called financially literate. Financial literacy goes beyond just knowing what goes on in the financial world, it is about understanding finance so that effective decisions about the business can be reached.

With the current economy, there is undoubtedly a need to improve financial literacy especially among those in the business sector. You may have the best business idea or the most innovative products in the market but if you do not have the essential financial knowledge in managing the money your business makes, you are in for a rough ride.…

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Employee Retention Strategies

employee retention strategiesThere are two main problems concerning human resources today. The first one is the unemployment rate which causes grossly underqualified people to apply to your company and the second is employee retention. For business owners, retaining your best employees may pose as a challenge.

Entrepreneurs know how competitive hiring is in the business sector and the fear of employees jumping the fence to join a competitor is more palpable now more than ever. It is hard to find good employees but it is even harder to promote company loyalty. Once you find top quality people to work for you, you have to ensure that you can keep them because retaining quality employees is one of the keys to ensure the growth of your business.…

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Optimize Your Marketing Efforts Without Hiring a Team of Know-It-Alls

email marketing One of the keys to success for every small business is a really smart marketing program that keeps existing customers in the fold and continually incites prospects to join. The program should include the most cost-effective ways to raise brand-awareness, leverage your expertise and share deals.

Although many are still hesitant to move away from snail-mail or the telephone, others are rapidly discovering that email marketing is one of the most effective means of generating sales.   Research conducted in 2009 by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) found that email outperforms all other forms of direct marketing.

If you’re new to email marketing, or want to crank it up a notch, here are three tips to help you build and grow your email marketing list without having to look for additional budget.…

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Frugal Business Spending: A Must In A Tough Economy

frugal business spendingIn these tough times, the biggest impact of the economic downturn is being felt by the small business sector. This is largely because of the fact that there are fewer resources available to counter the effects of an uncertain economy. The best way for a small business to thrive nowadays is by cutting costs. Practicing frugality in your business does not mean that you are sacrificing the quality and service level of your company. Cost cutting on certain aspects of your business could just be the economic stimulus needed to let you bounce back from an economic spiral.

Basically, there are six areas you can start spending less on but still retain the quality of your products and services.…

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The Importance Of Hiring The Very Best Employees

hiring the best employees possibleAs small business owners, we wear many different hats.   Among which, hiring the right people, and helping them achieve their highest potential, are two of your most important responsibilities.   But which one is MORE important?

This is an oft-debated topic – at big companies and small – about whether it’s more important to:

A.           Hire the best people, or

B.           Get the most from your people

Many large companies spend a lot of time and energy teaching their managers about choice (B) – getting the most from their direct employees – while devoting surprisingly little attention to the recruitment of “A Players.”…

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Getting Into The Foursquare Frenzy

social networking on FoursquareMany business owners are now relying heavily on social media to help market their products and services. You may already have a business account with Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You may also see that with these sites, your sales went up higher than you expected. But you should not stop there. People regularly think of ways to let them connect with others who share the same interests and you have to be updated so that your business can thrive.

The latest addition to social networking media, which can help promote small businesses, is the Foursquare iPhone app. It is a well-known belief that the best marketing strategy is by word of mouth and Foursquare has it down pat.…

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The “Secret” Customer Service Weapon for Small Technology Companies

customer service telephone communicationsTechnology companies are, unfortunately, almost as well known for having poor customer service as they are for their actual products.   Why is that?

Small business expert Anita Campbell cited poor customer service for web apps as one of three key issues that needs to be overcome before cloud apps can become ubiquitous in small businesses.   Shame on us web software companies for allowing an easy-to-fix item like this onto the list!

This truth stings quite sharply, for a couple of reasons:

1.           It’s true

2.           Most cloud app companies are small companies (not large ones)

Crappy customer service is almost expected from large companies – in software, and beyond.  …

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