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[Infographic] The SMB Social Media Cheat Sheet

David Strom — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 09:00:00 -0800

The folks at Flowtown have put together a quick reference guide to six different social media services. Called the SMB Social Media Cheat Sheet, it contains basic stats on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, Tumblr and Digg. What, no LinkedIn? That is perhaps the biggest missing service, but otherwise the infographic, reproduced below, is worth bookmarking for those noobs in your company that are looking to learn more about each service.

I particularly liked the how to begin for each service.

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Here's How to Win $5k For Your Favorite Non-profit

David Strom — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:00:00 -0800

Wanna win $5000 for your favorite non-profit? All it takes is to post a slide deck on Sliderocket for this contest called Make an Impact. Your presentation needs to be posted before March 28, and probably as soon as possible so you can begin promoting it and get some views. The four presentations with the most unique presentation views and judged to have the best storyline, composition and compelling cause will each win a $5,000 donation to their non-profit.

You don't have to be employed by the non-profit to enter: just designate who is going to get the dough if you win. The winning entries will be based on the strength of your story, presentation composition, and your non-profit's potential to make an impact.

Good luck! It is a great idea, and showcase's SlideRocket's process to collaborate too.

Where's the Market Research?

Lee Crockett — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:00:00 -0800

Back in the day; back when we still did telephone interviews, mall intercepts, and door to door product placements, i.e. before the Internet, it used to take weeks, sometimes months, to get results from marketing research projects.

To test a package, for example, we would contract with a field service that had a mall facility and recruit shoppers to compare the package designs and tell us about their preferences. Generally it would take two to three weeks to get the artwork and approvals from the client, two weeks to actually conduct the interviewing, a week to have the questionnaires coded and tabulated, then another week to prepare the final report and present it to the client.

Back in the early 90's this project would cost $10,000 to $25,000; depending on whether you used an independent consultant or a large, well known marketing research company.

I recently had the opportunity to conduct a frozen food package design study. The client approved the study Tuesday morning, emailed the final artwork on Tuesday afternoon, and the study launched (via the internet) on Tuesday evening. The interviewing was completed Wednesday evening and the coding, tabulating, and reporting were done on Thursday. At 4:30 Thursday afternoon I emailed the final report to the client. Three days start to finish! And what did it cost? About 15% of what it would have cost in 1990.

Lee Crockett has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, as a consultant, and as a mentor. As an entrepreneur he was principle/founder in several start-up ventures and managed a turn-around for a specialty food company. His Venture Advisors has created and implemented business mentoring programs for the St. Louis County Economic Council, the St. Louis Enterprise Centers, and the City of Highland, Illinois.

I bring this up because in every mentoring relationship that I do, sooner or later one of the mentors will ask the entrepreneur: "Where's the research?" Usually the response goes something like: "I have talked to many of my friends about this and they all say it's a great idea and that they will buy..." That's not good enough.

The point is that the Internet provides us with opportunities previously unavailable. The most important opportunity is the ability to get answers, insights, opinions, attitudes, and demographic information about constituents, customers, audiences, and markets. And we can get those answers quickly and inexpensively. In almost every case, an investment in market research by a start-up company will generate a significant return on that investment. It is something to keep in mind.

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Save 10% On Microsoft Office365 With MasterCard

David Strom — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 10:30:00 -0800

MasterCard and Microsoft announced a new strategic initiative to market and sell Microsoft's cloud productivity service, Office 365. You can get an automatic 10% discount when you buy through their easysavings.com discount program and use your MasterCard. There are several plans that start at $6 per user per month for less than 50 seats (undiscounted).

We last looked at Office 365 here and compared it to Google Docs and Zoho Docs. Microsoft has changed a few elements of its plans since our article came out this summer.

The easysavings.com program is similar to those from other credit card companies, and there is a list of other discounts that are available. You don't need to do anything to get the discounts, other than use your credit card, once you register. For small businesses, this might be worth a few bucks off your bill if you use any of these service providers: you can save 10% off Budget car rentals, and 5% on Frontier airline tickets too.

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Next Advisor Posts Reviews of Business Credit Cards

David Strom — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 12:00:00 -0800

If you are feeling a bit of a credit crunch around this time of year, it might be a good idea to check out the reviews of business credit cards on NextAdvisor.com here. The reviews site is trying to bulk up its business offerings, and now covers business VOIP services, some basic recommendations on cloud computing, online meeting providers and Web hosting services, in addition to its consumer offerings that it cut its teeth on such as best dating sites and diet programs.

We last wrote about them earlier this fall, looking at their reviews of online backup service providers. They add oodles of content each week, and their comparison charts are very well done, giving you the implications of features and pricing options for each service covered. All the content is free and well organized.

SMB IT Budgets On the Rise According to Spiceworks

David Strom — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:00:00 -0800

The latest semi-annual State of SMB IT report from Spiceworks was released last week. It contains some interesting mobile and cloud computing trends, culled from 1,300 users of the SaaS-based IT management software. They found that the "growth engine is well warmed up and on a path of continued growth and investment" for SMB-related IT spending. Budgets grew nine percent year over year, the largest increase in two years.

Also on the rise is the adoption of virtualization. 61% of the respondents, up from 54% this part spring, plan on adding virtual servers to their companies, with key concentrations to core apps such as Web and database services. Spiceworks has found that cloud service adoption has skyrocketed among SMBs, with 46% now using cloud services, up from just 28% in the first half of 2011, and a significant spike from the 14% that reported doing so mid-year 2010.

About half of SMB IT professionals either have deployed or plan to deploy tablets within the next 6 months. A third of respondents have already deployed tablets on their networks.

This is the fifth survey from Spiceworks on IT spending and usage. Twenty-five percent of the respondents are from businesses with less than 20 employees, while more than 30% are from businesses with 100 or more employees. More than four-fifths of all respondents (83.7%) come from businesses with 5 or fewer full-time IT staff. Respondents are from all over the world, with 40% in North America.

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YourOfficeAnywhere Offers Cheap Web Conferencing

David Strom — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:30:00 -0800

There are dozens, if not more, vendors offering Web conferencing services. They mostly fall into two price tiers: $50 or more per month, with various fees, and next to nothing that offer few features. The higher-priced spread is great on features but requires some setup, the low end can be quick to use but not very robust.

That middle ground is where YourOfficeAnywhere.com is trying to claim, and while I haven't used it for very long, it has some promise. For $10 per user per month, you get a combination of three separate services:

A cloud-based file storage
Web conferencing, including Web camera, screen sharing, audio conference bridge and whiteboarding
Text chat, group messaging, and activity streams

There are no other usage fees or per-minute surcharges for the audio or other hidden fees. Creating a new conference call takes seconds, and you can invite up to 200 participants. The site has been optimized so it works with smartphone Web browsers. That's the good news.

The product has some drawbacks, however. The file sharing is bare-bones: you can upload files up to 2 MB, which is pretty puny and won't do if you are working on a video project. You do have up to 100 GB of storage available per account. Image files aren't displayed in thumbnails unlike other services, and you can't easily re-organize them once you upload them.You wouldn't want to use the streaming feature to replace a Jive or Socialtext, but for lightweight "here is what the team is doing" kinds of stuff it is adequate. And the beta version that we tried out still seemed a bit shaky.

Certainly, you could combine a set of free or nearly-so services to come close to YourOfficeAnywhere's functionality. But why bother when you have everything in a single package, and for cheap too?

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Boost Your Social Marketing Analytics With 44Doors' CaptureSMB

David Strom — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 11:00:00 -0800

If you can't afford big-time analytics price tags, you might want to take a look at the CaptureSMB service from 44Doors. The company announced this lower-priced SMB version today that is easy to use and set up campaign management tools. You can create individual micro-sites with a variety of tracking tools and automatically generate QR codes and short URLs to analyze your visitors' behavior and traffic patterns across mobile browsers and various social networks.

Most of the setup involves using simple Web forms, as you can see from the screen capture below. The dashboards are intuitive with lots of the usual analytics information clearly displayed. The product is completely SaaS based, like most other tools in this space.

You can create campaigns that can instantly route campaign traffic to specific content based on a number of variables. "We've taken key learnings from our enterprise clients and packaged a solution for small businesses that will help drive more sales and improves social media marketing results," says 44Doors CEO Andy Meadows.

If you already use Omniture or Coremetrics or other analytics platforms, they offer integration with these and other tools. CaptureSMB is priced with a simple recurring monthly licensing fee ranging from $50 to $200, determined by usage volume.

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WIN $10k for an Original Video for .TV

David Strom — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 11:00:00 -0800

We love contests here at ReadWriteWeb, and even though we aren't affiliated with this one it seems like a peach. Create your own 30 to 60 second commercial touting the benefits of having a .tv domain name, upload it to their Facebook page here, and have a shot at winning a pile of cash, or at least one of two cool digital prosumer cameras as runner-up prizes.

The folks behind .tv aren't some fly-by-night operation, we are talking Verisign, one of the big Internet domain authorities that has been around for decades. You have to answer the question "Why should I get seen on .tv?" Entrants do not have to purchase or use any .tv domain names to enter the contest, and just have to get their submission uploaded before October 23.

Contest judging takes place over two rounds. The first round of judging begins Monday, Oct. 24, and includes a panel of judges determined by Verisign who will narrow the field to 10 semi-finalists based on the following equally-weighed criteria: on-air presence, relevance to theme, originality and creativity. The second round of judging, commencing Thursday, Nov. 3, allows for the public to vote on the 10 semi-finalist projects hosted on Facebook. Upon the conclusion of the public voting period, the top three commercials based on total votes will be awarded to a Grand Prize, First Prize and Second Prize winner.

So start blocking out your shots and planning your entries. Good luck!

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How to Create A Great Facebook Restaurant Page

David Strom — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:00:00 -0800

We all know that small businesses should create their own Facebook Pages to help customers find them and engage with them online. Now there is a great set of guidelines from MenuPlatform that is specific to restaurant owners. It is well worth your time to take a closer look, even if you aren't concerned with this particular type of business.

How can restaurants use Facebook? Not just to post daily specials, but as a portal to drive traffic to their own website or as way to make it easier for customers to reserve a table using the OpenTable.com Facebook plug-in app. They can also share current news and events, put up a map and directions, and use Facebook to research what their customers like and don't like about their food, service, and other operations. And, as we all know, it is free: you don't have to pay for some fancy or expensive Web site designer.

The instructions in the link are pretty basic. Once you have set up your page, you need to drive people to "like" it and to start sharing comments about their experience. But you know that already, right? If you are looking for more advanced instructions, you might want to check out FaceITPages' Facebook HTML app that can be used to create customized Facebook Pages but don't have the time to learn more markup commands. There are numerous add-on modules to allow you to create Wordpress feeds or photo galleries inside your Facebook Page.

MenuPlatform's blog is just getting started, and there is another post that will provide other tips on why you should use social media marketing. The main site has an app in beta that can import your menus and keep it updated. The site was spun out from several MIT grads who recently got funding and you can read more of Scott Kirsner's coverage of other Boston-based restaurant-related startups here.

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Salesforce for QuickBooks Now Available

David Strom — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:00:00 -0800

Today, Intuit announced the availability of a connector between QuickBooks and Salesforce. It seems like a marriage made in Heaven. (We previously reported on the partnership back in April here.)

The idea is to share your QB financial data with your sales team in the cloud, so that you can better follow sales leads and be able to understand your customer interactions. The service is available starting today and the pricing plan makes it a great starting place for those of you whom have never tried Salesforce. You can get a price break on existing Salesforce contracts too.

To get started, you first have to be using the QB Online service, or be able to synchronize your desktop QB data with the cloud-based version. Then you signup for the service as part of the Intuit Partner Platform by going to this location in your browser.

Next, you start to populate your SF customer lists with the QB data. You can see QB financial details when you are looking at an account detail (see screen shot above). As an example, a salesperson could see what items are in stock at a particular point in time.

QB will also work with the Salesforce mobile apps in addition to the Web clients.

Pricing is just slightly different from a regular Salesforce monthly contract: Intuit supports two of the tiers group for $18 (vs. the regular $15 monthly fee per user) and professional for $60 per user. The latter is actually five bucks cheaper than what Salesforce charges for its CRM service without QB.

In addition to the connector, Intuit also announced the 2012 versions of QB. The new versions include an auto-populated calendar view of appointments, to do's and important business tasks, along with better Excel integration and a huge library of user-generated reports. It comes in three versions: Pro for $230, Premiere for $400, and Accountant.

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Win $50k in a Dell & MasterCard SMB Contest

David Strom — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 06:04:47 -0800

Most of us only dream of being a reality TV star, but if you have your own small business, now is your chance to try out and have a chance to win $50,000, some Dell computer products and fame on the big screen. All it takes is a three-minute or less video that you have to create and post to YouTube before September 11. So take some time over the holiday weekend and start writing your script and blocking out your shots!

The contest is called America's Favorite Small Business and the link provides details on what you need to know to enter. All firms with less than 25 employees owned by any US legal resident over 18 are eligible, you don't need to buy anything to enter.

Judging criteria is also relatively straightforward: there will be given 40% weight to the quality of storytelling and the video produced. The other 60% will consider the originality of your business, the journey taken by the firm's owners, the passion and enthusiasm for your business and how technology plays a critical role in your operations and success.

A few videos have already been posted to the site, and once the submission period ends, judges will determine the top ten entrants, which will then be put to a vote by the public. Nine of these will receive a Dell debit card for $1,000. The grand prize winner will get a prepaid debit card for $50,000, plus a collection of Dell products worth $25,000, along with the opportunity to appear on a new online reality show.

I think this is a very cool contest, and risk/reward is about right for the effort involved to enter. Good luck!

Note: RWW is not a sponsor or otherwise involved in the contest.

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Norton's Pricey New Online Help Desk

David Strom — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 05:25:46 -0800

Many small businesses don't have much depth when it comes to IT support, and Symantec's Norton division is here to help with its first 24/7 online help desk.

What can you call them about? A lot of different problems: virus infections, of course, but also solving network connection issues, general PC tuneups, hooking up a printer or a scanner, and general consultative help. Yes, there are lots of local VARs that offer this service, but the Norton name carries a certain cachet. (For those of you too young to remember, Peter Norton pictured above, was an early utility software pioneer, and is now a patron of the arts.)

The Ultimate Help Desk service, as it is called, is part of a series of other Norton Live services, including a $5 one-time Rescue Me diagnosis that they have offered for some time. Individual pieces of the help desk are also priced separately: for example you can pay $100 for a one-time virus removal procedure. Everything is done across the Internet remotely (once you download their agent) while you are on the phone with their technicians.

The help doesn't come cheap, though. Small business plans start at $1200 per year for a minimum of five desktops. You can almost buy five desktops for that price, although subsequent years cost less because the first year includes startup fees. Personal and family plans start at $200 per desktop per year, which might be a better way to go depending on the size of your business. You can pay for monthly subscriptions too.

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How to Make Webinars Work

Joe Brockmeier — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:30:00 -0800

If your business is looking to webinars to reach potential customers, Bob Darabant of Astaro has a couple of tips that might keep your cast from falling flat. Hint: Making it sales-focused is probably not the answer. Darabant, VP of Astaro Americas, has a handful of suggestions for making webcasts work for VARs – but these apply pretty well to any business that might be pondering a webcast.

The first and most salient point is not to make it sales-focused. People know when they're being sold to versus when they're being offered useful information. Don't give people a 30-minute lecture on what your marketing department wants them to know – provide a benefit to the people who are attending. Darabant says, "VARs should think about who they want to attract to the webinar, (titles, company size, and vertical) and then research the issues facing these industries today. Once you've learned about a few major problems that your target audience is dealing with, find a way your product fits in, and that is your topic."

What if they gave a webinar and nobody came? You probably don't want to find out. Another part of Darabant's advice is not so much about the webinar itself, but about ensuring that the right people turn up. Don't, he says, just use email to try to drive people to a webinar – use Google Ads, Twitter, Facebook, and other outlets.

Another tip? Bring a guest speaker. A voice from outside the organization might be much more interesting than someone from your company. If it means spending money, Darabant says to do it. "In some cases you may be forced to pay for a guest speaker. The money you spend will be well worth it because the speaker will probably want to promote the webinar for him/herself as well, helping you reach an even larger audience."

Solid advice. The webinars I've taken the time to attend offered a topic I cared about and the promise to learn more on the topic that I could put to use. The webinars that I've left early were the ones that were sales-saturated and little more than a Web-based infomercial. Don't be that company.

As good as Darabant's post is, I'm sure there's more to successful webinars. What would you want to get out of a webinar? What kind of topics and information are hard to come by?

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Improve Customer Communication and Relationships With Intercom

John Paul Titlow — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:30:00 -0800

Businesses operating online can have hundreds or thousands of customers navigating their Website in a given day, in most cases slipping by without the business owner acknowledging them or necessarily even knowing anything about them.

A web app called Intercom is the latest in a growing selection of customer relationship management and engagement products that aims to change that, for better or worse.

By dropping a line of JavaScript into their sites, business owners can pull in more social data about their registered site users and engage them with targeted messages. Intercom automatically pulls in links to users' social profile, their general location and how long they've been active on the business's site.

Businesses can then reach out to site visitors with specific messages. For example, you could ask users if they need help or have any feedback, which many will appreciate.

Of course, not all users will go for this kind of thing, as some are perfectly content to browse a Website, make a purchase (or not) and leave without interacting with anybody. This being the case, these types of tools should probably be used with caution and moderation, but that isn't to say they can't be of enormous value to companies.

Intercom also lets you track those customer relationships over time so you can get an idea of which relationships are some of your most valuable online.

The app is currently in private beta, which you can sign up for here.

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