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1. Stopwaste: Stopwaste is focused on reducing the waste stream in Alameda County. How do they do this? By offering technical assistance, funding assistance, and a wealth of resources to help businesses reduce what they send to the landfill.
2. Recology: An employee-owned business that provides recycling, composting, and disposal services for businesses, Recology is a great resource. They’ll even do a free waste consultation for you to help you determine how you can save money by implementing recycling and composting services while reducing your waste pick-up.
3. Smart Lights: Would your business benefit from a free energy audit that would help you identify how you can be more energy efficient, saving both money and natural resources, while also identifying available rebate opportunities for the retrofit? If so, Smart Lights can do just that and help you if you’re in Oakland, Berkeley, Albany or parts of Contra Costa County.
4. B.E.S.T. Program: Is your business in an area not covered by Smart Lights but still interested in a free energy audit and assistance with rebates? The Business Energy Solutions Team offers a similar service to businesses in other parts of the East Bay, including San Leandro, Hayward, San Ramon, and Walnut Creek.
5. Smart Solar: Have you ever wondered if installing solar panels would be possible for your business? Smart Solar can help you answer that question. They offer free solar assessments and project assistance to businesses that are PG&E customers throughout Alameda and Contra Costa Counties.
6. Food Service Technology Center: If you’re in the restaurant industry, the Food Service Technology Center is an amazing resource for you. They specialize in promoting energy efficiency in food service and can help you with site surveys (free to PG&E customers), finding rebates for kitchen equipment (did you know you could get a $500 rebate for an energy efficient fryer?), and more.
7. Bay-Friendly Landscaping: Stopwaste is one of the sponsors of the Bay-Friendly Landscaping and Gardening Coalition, which promotes sustainable landscaping that conserves water and reduce pollution. If your business has landscaping, consider using a Bay-Friendly Qualified Professional (and be sure to use drought-tolerant, California native plants!).
8. Sustainable Business Alliance: The SBA is a business association committed to building a vibrant community of locally-owned, sustainably-minded businesses in the East Bay. SBA offers networking and business development for members, educates the public about the benefits of local economies and spending money locally, and supports public policy changes that promote sustainable economic development.
9. Green Chamber of Commerce: The Green Chamber is a growing and diverse business network dedicated to promoting the success of its members, supporting the development of sustainable business practices, and advocating for  green public policy.
10. Green Business Program: Last but most certainly not least is the Alameda County Green Business Program, which can provide your business with resources and support to receive Green Business Certification. The Green Business Program sets standards in areas such as energy efficiency and water conservation and partners with cities and utilities to help businesses to reduce their environmental impacts.

I know there are more resources out there! What would you add to this list?

• Benefit Corp legislation is still pending in Michigan, noted in this article that explains how Benefit Corps are different from regular corporations. Care2 also has an online petition supporting legislation in Michigan. In South Carolina, one of the legislators who introduced legislation in that state explains how his plan mixes doing well with doing good.
• It seems like every day there’s a new blog post trying to explain what benefit corporations are – even Bill Moyers is getting in on the action with this post.
• B Corps are driving a new ecology of commerce, as detailed in this great post that explains how to become a B Corp, why companies choose to do it, and how they’re changing the corporate playing field.
• “Advancing the benefit corporation” tops the list of 10 ways finance can be a force for good, in an interesting post by a Yale Professor of Economics and Finance.
• California is currently home to 142 of the 505 Certified B Corps nationwide, and 61% of those are in the Bay Area, as noted in this piece on Oakland North that shines the spotlight on Oakland-based Give Something Back and Berkeley-based Sun Light and Power.
• A misconception continues to persist, in some circles, that doing good comes at a price for a business. Certified B Corp Harvest Power, however, shows that’s not true as they raise $110 million to turn waste to energy.
• Certified B Corp United By Blue brings sustainable apparel to the mainstream in a big way – its first production run of t-shirts made in the US has been picked up by Nordstroms.
• Have you met Aunt Bertha? You should. This Certified B Corporation is doing something quite interesting – picking up where Uncle Sam leaves off.
• Can a new kind of corporation save us and our economy? That’s the question asked in this article on Alternet, which showcases Certified B Corp Equator Coffee as a “B Corp in Action.”
• Congrats to Dogeared Jewels & Gifts, which recently announced their official certification as a B Corp!

Finally, in a piece prompted by their original B Corp profile (included in The Latest Buzz #6), PBS takes a closer at LEED Certification:

What are your thoughts on the latest B Corp news?

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As a business owner in the East Bay, you are in a unique position with the sustainability options available to you.

There’s a sustainability progression that is available to East Bay businesses, and each step along the way provides an opportunity for you to establish a solid sustainability foundation for your business:

1. Get started on going green – everyone has to start somewhere, and making sure that you cover the basics is a good first step.
2. Work on Green Business Certification – meet the third-party standards of the Alameda County Green Business Program, which addresses energy efficiency, water conservation, pollution prevention, and waste reduction.
3. Work on B Corp Certification – build upon your environmental efforts through B Corp Certification, a national certification for companies that harness the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.
4. Go beyond and blaze a trail for other triple-bottom line businesses – this is the new territory in which you join other companies that are breaking new ground in reimagining business for the 21st century.

It could be argued that business owners everywhere have access to this same sustainability progression. However, there are a few features that make the East Bay unique:

1. Getting started – an abundance of resources exist here that facilitate the process of getting started in the greening process. Looking for free energy audits? Both Smart Lights and the BEST program serve Alameda County. Interested in recycling options? Stopwaste.org can assist with everything from setting up recycling programs to figuring out how to properly dispose of almost anything you can imagine. Would you like to network with other green business owners? Both the Sustainable Business Alliance and the Green Chamber of Commerce can facilitate that. The list of resources to help you go green that we have available here is quite extensive!
2. Green Business Certification – the Alameda County Green Business Program is a robust program with over 500 certified businesses. The program sets clear standards for certification and has developed strong partnerships with utilities and municipalities throughout the county that support the program. In addition, certified businesses go through an audit process that ensures that their practices meet the program standards, which strengthens the credibility for this program over others that forgo confirmation of a company’s practices.
3. B Corp Certification – while B Corps exist throughout the US and Canada, the East Bay is home to many B Corps, including Give Something Back, Green Retirement Plans, Numi Tea, Free Range Studios, Cutting Edge Capital, Sungevity, Wendel Rosen, and Scientific Certification Systems, to name just a few. Plus, the West Coast B Corp staff office is just across the Bay in San Francisco. The combination of a local office and numerous certified businesses results in an active community that can provide support to new B Corps.
4. Go beyond – the Bay Area is a hub of activity right now around sustainable business, social entrepreneurship, impact investing, clean tech, green building, progressive legislation, and numerous other factors that are paving the way towards new models for the socially and environmentally responsible businesses of the future. If any company is interested in pushing the boundaries of old business models and trying something new and innovative, this is the time and place to do it.

Do you own a business in the East Bay? Where are you in this progression?

• This year, in addition to release the 2012 B Corp Annual Report, B Lab took an additional step to recognize companies that it considers “best for the world.” These “Rock Stars of the New Economy” rank in the top 10% of all certified B Corps.
• Congratulations to Greyston Bakery on becoming the first Benefit Corporation in NY state!
• In case anyone doubts that integrating triple bottom line practices might jeopardize business growth, check out these 6 companies that are growing rapidly while doing good.
• The founder of Certified B Corp One World Futbol talks about why he chose people, planet, profit and became a B Corp.
• From the B Corp blog: Better World Books Drop Box Program collects books, diverts them from landfills, makes a book-for-book donation, and donates a percentage of every book sale to support literacy and education programs. Great example of how a business can do good!
• Benefit Corporations continue to gain traction across the country – Minnesota has now joined the ranks of states that have sought to pass legislation with the recent introduction of a bipartisan bill.
• New York Benefit Corporation Agrodolce for Fast Foodies was featured in the NY Times for incorporating a new corporate structure and a triple bottom line.
• Still trying to get a handle on the difference between Benefit Corporations as a legal designation and Certified B Corporations as a third-party certification? This post explains it all.

And, in case you missed it, here’s the piece that PBS did on B Corps – “Benefit Corporations Aim to Make Profit, Positive Impact.” It’s worth watching!

What are your thoughts on the latest B Corp news?

• Forbes turned the spotlight to the rise of the charitable for-profit entity, examining “two new types of corporations [that] have been created to address the goals of making money, attracting private investors and addressing societal concerns: the benefit corporation and L3C.”
• The Wall Street Journal noted “That anything other than maximizing shareholder value should be considered in a company’s decision-making normally can open the door to investor suits”… Benefit Corporations, however, are now changing that.
• Why do companies choose to become Certified B Corps? Context Travel explains their reasons and the benefits of becoming a B Corp. Renewable Choice Energy also recently became a certified B Corp. On their blog, they share their experience getting certified as a B Corp.
• “B Corps are about changing (or rather growing) corporate laws, standards, systems, and cultures” – and in doing so, they’re driving a new ecology of commerce.
• B Corp Open Neighborhood is bringing idea of local communication to the digital age, with a unique social media platform, a free-wifi initiative, and a group purchasing program for solar energy. Learn more about Open Neighborhood on Care2.
• Though the B Corp certification is not intended for non-profits, have you ever been curious about what B Lab’s own B report would look like? Wait no longer. In the spirit of transparency, B Lab has released its own B report, impact assessment, and supplier list.

Finally, the CBS Evening News ran this piece about Benefit Corporations that focus on giving back:

What are your thoughts on the latest B Corp news?

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Good content should drive your online marketing. Now that you’ve set up your website, how will you ensure that users will find you online? What are you going to tweet about and post updates about?

This is where your content marketing comes into play. You need to determine what kinds of content will be of interest to existing and potential clients. What information do they need that you can provide? How can you provide that information in a way that will be interesting and informative?

Why Content Marketing Is Important

Content marketing is important for a few reasons:

1. Most people today don’t want to be bombarded with advertising that may or may not be relevant to them. The old method of marketing “at” people (through billboards, commercials, etc.) is not nearly as effective as providing information that is relevant to a potential customer at the time that they’re looking for it. Content marketing helps you to provide useful information that people are looking for right when they’re ready for it.
2. Search engines are driven by content – every single search consists of someone using keywords to look for something. You want the people who are looking for what you have to offer to be able to find you.
3. To bring in fans, followers, and readers (all of whom are potential clients), you need to give them something worth reading, watching, or listening to. As many people have noted, when it comes to online marketing, “If you build it, they will come” does not apply – you need to give people a compelling reason to engage with you.
4. Blogging for business is recognized as one of the best forms of marketing your business online, and good blogging requires that you have a clear idea about the content you want to deliver via your blog.

In short, content marketing is the process of creating content that will be valuable to current and potential clients and then making sure that your content is shared online so that people can find it.

Tips to Get You Started

Be aware that working on your content marketing will take time. You will need to:

1. Identify your goals. What do you want to achieve through your marketing? What is the target market that you are trying to reach? Developing a marketing plan and a social media strategy should be your first steps in this process.
2. Keep it manageable. Content creation can include blogs, podcasts, videos, presentations, and more. As a small business owner, it’s important to stick to doing something that will be manageable, especially if only you and perhaps one other person will be creating the content. Don’t feel that you have to do it all.
3. Develop a system for implementation. This doesn’t need to be too complicated, but you should at least be clear about who will develop the content, where will it be published, how it will be shared through social media, and how you will respond to comments on your blog and Facebook.
4. Develop an editorial calendar. This is a handy way of planning what you will post and when. You can identify the types of blog posts that you want to write, as well as plan ahead for your Facebook updates and tweets.
5. Identify appropriate content for each of your channels. People will engage with your content differently on your blog than they will on Facebook, and they will engage differently on Facebook than they will on Twitter. For example, when people go to your blog, they are looking for specific information on a topic that they want to learn more about and it will take more than 140 characters to provide them with that information. When they see your status update on Facebook, it will often be mixed in with updates from their friends and family, and they are more likely to click the “like” button if it’s something that they can take in really quickly.
6. Incorporate your keywords. This is particularly important if you are blogging for business. Make sure that you use keywords that people will use to search for your product or service and incorporate those into your blog title and posts. Although the search engines are constantly changing the way that they serve up search results, people are still entering keywords in their searches and you want to make sure that they can find you.
7. Be aware that this will take time! Like all marketing, this will take time. It’s not a simple matter of setting up your social media profiles and just sending out a few tweets. You’ll need to work on this regularly, but over time, you will begin to see the results of your efforts.

• California’s new Benefit Corporation legislation went into effect on Jan. 3, paving the way for more companies to maximize social good while turning a profit. In all, 12 companies registered as Benefit Corporations on the first day, with Patagonia leading the charge as California’s first Benefit Corporation. KQED reported on Benefit Corporations, and even mainstream business publications took notice of the new law; Bloomberg examined the possible future of sustainable business law and the Economist noted that firms with benefits are part of a larger trend, with Britain and European countries already having or also developing new legal frameworks.
• B Lab has set up a comprehensive Benefit Corporation Information Center that is a great resource for information about Benefit Corporations. It’s well worth checking out for businesses, attorneys, and directors interested in learning more about benefit corporations.
• A great article on the Stanford Social Innovation Review explains why corporate structure matters and notes that Benefit Corporations represent “an opportunity to make a paradigm shift that harnesses the incredible power of companies to benefit society and the economy.”
• The emergence of Benefit Corporations that incorporate a social or environmental mission into for-profit companies of course also blurs the traditional lines between for-profit and non-profit organizations. A short post on The Non-profit Quarterly asks, “But what does it [the Benefit Corporation structure] say about non-profits?” The American Bar Association noted that it could help non-profits deliver benefits by offering a new solution to the dilemma about whether to incorporate as a non-profit or for-profit. Nixon Peabody Law Firm provides a lengthy and detailed examination of Benefit Corporations, L3Cs, and the need to clearly understand the new legal alternatives for structuring business entities.
• B Corp Warby Parker continues to make the news, this time with a write-up in Entrepreneur magazine about how this innovative eyeglass company secured venture capital (if you missed their Fast Company video, you can view it here.)
• B Corps continue to grow in Canada. IMG  just became certified in December 2011, joining Dirtt and Bullfrog Power as Founding Canadian B Corporations.

Finally, our local NBC Bay Area spotlighted Give Something Back in its segment about Benefit Corporations:

]]> http://www.cultivatingcapital.com/b-corporations/benefit-corporations-and-b-corps-the-latest-buzz-4/feed 8 http://www.cultivatingcapital.com/marketing/small-business-blogging-6-tips-to-improve-your-blog-in-2012 http://www.cultivatingcapital.com/marketing/small-business-blogging-6-tips-to-improve-your-blog-in-2012#comments Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:03:40 +0000 Carolina Miranda http://www.cultivatingcapital.com/?p=3316 The start of the new year is a great opportunity to revitalize your small business blog. If you’re looking to make improvements this year, these 6 tips can help you get started:

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1. Create compelling content: No one wants to read content that isn’t insightful, interesting, informative, or enlightening. This doesn’t mean that every post has to consist of Pulitzer-worthy writing, but it does have to be worth reading for the audience that you are trying to reach. Be clear about who you’re writing for and what they’re interested in and need to know.
   
2. Focus on SEO: Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing your online content so that it can be easily found by search engines. While this is an area that can appear to be complex, there are several simple steps that you can take to make your blog posts search-engine friendly. For example, using keywords in your blog title is an easy way to optimize your business blog.
3. Grab your reader’s attention: When it comes to blogs, you don’t have much time to get your reader’s attention. People click over and scan your post in seconds to decide if they want to read it or not. Fortunately there are simple techniques that can help you capture a reader’s attention – quickly.
4. Commit to blogging regularly: Like anything else, blogging is a skill that gets easier with practice. As you become more comfortable with the blogging process – generating ideas, researching and drafting posts, editing and publishing, sharing your content via social media – you’ll find that it does become easier over time. Getting into a daily writing schedule is key to successful blogging.
   
5. Learn from the mistakes of others: By this point, blogging is no longer a new field to be explored the way it was a few years ago. Many bloggers have made mistakes and graciously shared their lessons so that you can avoid making the same business blog blunders.
6. Share your content via social media: Unless you’re writing a personal blog for your friends and family, you obviously want people to find your blog and share its content. This is especially important if you are blogging for business and trying to achieve specific business goals. Make sure that your content can be shared as part of your social media strategy.

Of course, this all assumes that you already have a blog!  If you don’t yet have a blog, here are some tips to get started with your business blog.

Do you have questions about how you can improve your blog this year? If so, please leave them in the comments.

• The biggest story recently has been the news that NY became the 7th state to pass Benefit Corporation legislation! Even Forbes noted that NY is now a better state for business. Or, as one writer noted, Benefit Corporations are set to Occupy Wall Street.
• A good post on Greenbiz.com explains the legal requirements for Benefit Corporations in California, including the reporting requirements and shareholder votes needed to convert to a Benefit Corporation.
• Mike Hannigan of B Corp Give Something Back notes the macro-trends that are changing the face of corporate philanthropy, especially in the support systems that now exist for responsible businesses: business associations, investment capital, business professionals who support values-based businesses, and of course new legal structures such as Benefit Corporations. Taken together, it’s quite a potent force!
• As Benefit Corporation legislation continues to spread across the country, at least one state is wondering if it will miss this opportunity: Will Nevada be left behind?
• This Wall Street Journal post describes the differences among the three emerging legal structures for social entrepreneurs: L3Cs, Benefit Corporations, and Flexible-Purpose Corporations, with suggestions about which structure would be ideal for different types of companies.
• Mashable has jumped into the fray as well, asking “Do they really indicate good companies?” This is an important question, especially since the article notes that “72% of Americans believe it is important to ‘buy from green companies.’”
• B Corp Warby Parker was featured in a Fast Company video that is well worth watching. They have built giving back right into their business model: for every pair of glasses they sell, they gift a pair to someone who needs them but can’t afford them. The result in one year? 85,000 pairs of glasses to people around the world!

Finally, I’m happy to share the news that Cultivating Capital is now a certified B Corp as well! As a staunch supporter of B Corps, I am proud to be a part of a community committed to harnessing the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.

• Everyone’s talking about the passing of Benefit Corporation legislation in California. The Capitol Weekly, the newspaper of California government and politics, recently announced that a “new breed of company” is coming to California.
• The SF Gate also noted that “California can become a magnet for companies pursuing a triple bottom line,” especially since the Bay Area already has many socially-conscious companies.
• Sustainable Industries features a good overview about the Benefit of Benefit Corporations, explaining what they are and noting that “triple bottom line businesses are getting legit.”
• The emergence of Benefit Corporations of course has significant legal implications. This legal perspective explains the difference between Benefit Corporations and Flexible Purpose Corporations. Also, one of the attorneys who worked on Benefit Corporation legislation was recently interviewed by the Green Chamber of Commerce, and it’s well worth reading, which you can do here.
• Two movements as powerful as B Corps and Occupy Wall Street can’t help but call for comparison, such as in this post by B Lab co-founder Andrew Kassoy, an analysis on the shared goals and different tactics of the two movements, and how B Corps are an alternative to big corporations (a post that previously appeared on this blog).
• Did you know that there are B Corps in Canada? MaRS, which is “building Canada’s next generation of growth companies,” explains the B Corp Certification and a newspaper notes that a local company is one of only 20 B Corps in Canada.
• The story of B Corp iContact, an email marketing and social media marketing company, was profiled in Time magazine – and it’s an inspiring account of the humble origins of a $50 million company.

Finally, for the first time in its 94-year history, Forbes magazine identified the top 30 social entrepreneurs. Guess who made the list? B Lab founders Jay Coen Gilbert, Bart Houlahan and Andrew Kassoy, plus B Corps New Leaf Paper, Gray Ghost Ventures, Freelancers Union, and Ignia. Congrats to all!