Small Business Owners are the ‘NCOs’ of the Current Economic Struggle

I just finished watching an HBO series called The Pacific, which recounts in brutal detail some of the hardest fought battles of the Pacific Theatre during WWII. There is a scene, which I’ve clipped from YouTube, where the company commander is speaking to a group of NCOs regarding their role in winning the war.… Read More

Content Marketing for Small Business, Part 1

Effective marketing in the digital age mandates that you create engaging content for your customers, prospects, and social network fans and followers to consume.

First, let’s define what we mean by “content.”

Content can be anything – Facebook status updates, Twitter tweets, videos, images, or blog posts.… Read More

The Social Commerce Handbook Puts End to Social Media Hype

The Social Commerce HandbookThe Social Commerce Handbook: 20 Secrets for Turning Social Media into Social Sales, is now available for purchase.

Co-authored by the very smart Paul Marsden, editor of Social Commerce Today, and me, it effectively ends the hype over how social media can be used for sales.… Read More

Most Small Businesses Use Social Media But Few Do It Well

Small business social media

The Los Angeles Times reports on a new survey from Manta, an online forum for small business, which found that, of the 600 small businesses surveyed, 78% use social media in one form or another. The survey also found 58% say they “struggle to find value in using Facebook to promote their businesses or don’t have a page at all” and that “25% of those surveyed said their company website drives the most business for them.”

Which brings me to this article at MarketingProfs – Four Reasons to Jettison the Traditional Website and Go Social – that says small businesses are “dispensing with the traditional website in favor of integrating the most popular social networks right into the website.” While the article doesn’t advocate complete abandonment of traditional websites, it does recommend that companies opt for the use of social sites.… Read More

Quantity the Enemy of Quality in Facebook and Other Social Networks

Neural map of human brainA recent Harvard Business Review article asked, “Is Facebook To Big to Survive?” It made the assertion that, due to the immensity of its size – nearly 1 billion users – and the volume of connections between users – over 100 billion – that the network could implode around itself.… Read More