Blogging, RSS, Social news and networks, oh my! You’ve probably been hearing a lot of noise about "new media" or "social media" lately. If you’ve been wondering what it’s all about and how it applies to marketing your small business, check out this short (12 min) presentation from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.
[if you don't see the viewer for the video above, you can find the video using this link - http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/workshops.htm#social]
When I talk with customers and prospects about blogging as a small business marketing tool the discussion usually turns to the issue of making money with your blog. Using your blog to help people come to Know, Like, and Trust you takes a different level of focus and activity than creating a blog that has a primary purpose of generating revenue. In the former case, you are creating a tool to market your business. In the latter, you are creating a business.
Over on ProBlogger, Darren Rowse has a post entitled A Reality Check about Blogging for Money. As you read the post, it should have a familiar ring to it – it’s the same type of advice you hear about starting a small business – it takes work, it takes some luck, it’s not a "get rich quick" scheme and while it is difficult, it certainly can be done.
So if you have a blog or are getting ready to start one, have you goals in mind and be prepared to put in the level of effort necessary to reach your goals.
I originally "collected" this list from the Deliver Magazine. I’m posting it here so I can get rid of some of my piles.
Respondents prefer marketing that…
I stumbled on this gem of a web site while exploring the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation’s site.
The Yale Press Wiki is a project by the Yale University Press to create a free collection of scholarly books published by the Press and allow anyone to contribute through comments, summaries, links, etc. The wiki also makes available free, downloadable copies (in pdf) of each book. Personally, I like reading books in pdf format on my tabletpc, but if you prefer "real" books, hard copy versions are also available for purchase.
In addition to all of the great learning opportunities available to small business owners at the 2008 Microsoft Small Business Summit, Microsoft and Dell will be awarding one lucky business a Total Technology Makeover. You can win $100,000 worth of hardware, software and services.
Last year’s winner was Tomorrow’s Child Learning Center. To hear how winning the prize changed their business, listen to the audio on this page.
Click here to view the contest rules and to apply to apply for the Small Business Tech Makeover.
I’ve posted here before about the importance of defining your ideal customer and how that also means defining the group of potential customers that you don’t serve. Tim Berry does a great job of making this point in his recent post No, Starbucks, Don’t Try to Please Everybody.
I’d sure like to know the thinking behind Starbuck’s "tests" related to this $1 coffee. I’m a big fan of testing things out, failing fast, and finding out what customers really want. I could guess at reasons why this might be an idea:
Of course, I have no idea what the real reasons are, so I hope they share their thinking and findings with us after the test is completed.
Today’s entry in The Daily Drucker is about the importance of feedback in continuous learning. Here’s a short excerpt:
"Whenever a Jesuit priest or a Calvinist pastor does anything of significance (for instance, making a key decision), he is expected to write down the results he anticipates. Nine months later, he then feeds back from the actual results to to these anticipations. This very soon shows him what he did well and what his strengths are."
I think today’ Drucker lesson is particularly helpful for small business owners for a couple of reasons.
Many small business owners don’t have someone in their company that they feel they can confide in and go to for feedback. There is a belief that "the boss" is supposed to have all the answers. Rationally, we know this is not true, but it does make it difficult for many to search for feedback inside their own company. Small business owners have so much to do carrying out their day-to-day responsibilities that seeking someone outside the company to provide feedback becomes a low priority item.
Writing down your goals, anticipated results, and other thoughts about your business, is a great way for small business owners to "think out load" about their business and the many issues they must address. Incorporating a feedback loop by regularly performing periodic reviews further strengthens this technique.
I try to practice this myself, although I’m not as consistent yet as I hope to be. I do find that when I practice this habit of writing out my plans and thinking things through on paper that I am always more prepared to handle things when they don’t go exactly as planned.
The other thing I really like about Drucker’s lesson is the focus on discovering and working on your strengths. The point of these writings and reviews isn’t to point out your failures and beat yourself up over them. Rather, identify your strengths, work on improving them and capitalizing on them everyday.
Registration is open for the 2008 Microsoft Small Business Summit. The summit runs March 24 – 27, 2007. I attended this last year and it was a great event.
As I mentioned last year, I really like the format of this online conference because it allows small business owners to "attend" and learn valuable information without having to incur travel expenses or miss important meetings because they are out of town.
The other feature of this conference that I really like is that the sessions are recorded. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone to a conference and there were two or more presentations that I wanted to see but were only available in one time slot. Other time slots had nothing I was interested in. You don’t have that problem with the Small Business Summit because if you miss a session, you can always view the recordings.
In addition to being a conference I already enjoy, John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing will be leading the first session of the first day of the conference. Come join John and learn about low-cost, high-yield marketing strategies that you can use.
Here are some of the people that will be presenting:
Register today to be notified about conference details as they become available.
Here is a resource I stumbled upon recently – the 
QuickBooks Community Calendar is a resource you can use to find small business events near you. You can also use it promote your own small business event. This is a great way to find and promote seminars, webinars, etc. Here are just a few of the topics you will find listed for January:
Even if you are not a QuickBooks user, I highly recommend that you visit their Small Business Center Community where you will find lots of tips and information for running your small business.
If you are looking for to build a high quality list of business decision makers, check out Jigsaw. Jigsaw takes a community approach building and maintaining it’s contact information database by allowing it’s users to earn contacts by contributing and updating it’s contact records.
Jigsaw has over 7 million contacts in it’s directory. The contact information contains only business contact information – the kind you typically find on a business card.
In Jigsaw, you exchange points for contacts. The exchange rate is 5 points for 1 contact. If you don’t want to enter contacts, you can also purchase them.
You can also earn points by inviting others. Here is my referral link if you would like to sign up and gift me 25 free business contacts.
To learn more about Jigsaw, visit their Frequently Asked Questions page on their web site.
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