Our friend Denise McGill, author of the “Writing Tips for Small Business Owners” booklet, asked about using social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Delicious to promote her works online. Here’s a very quick introduction. StumbleUpon aims to help people discover neat things online that they otherwise might not. Delicious allows you to bookmark favorite items…
Facebook ads may be one of the most underutilized forms of local advertising. No matter how small your town, I’ll bet you have locals present on Facebook. My home town of Alva, Oklahoma, has hundreds of Facebook users. And when you start thinking about how many people in your target area are online, you’ll realize…
As more rural people join social networks, small town business people are looking to build in person networks with their fellow social media users. Chris Cornell shared his story in the Brag Basket: I own and operate a small business (custom picture framing) in the Village of Pleasantville, NY. I’ve been attempting to build…
Two events surprised me around professional networking site LinkedIn recently. First, a long time friend who shuns all online social interaction, joined LinkedIn and started connecting. He told me that he knew it was important if or when he looked for a new job. I was astounded that LinkedIn had enough potential benefit to draw…
In most social networks, you have the chance to add a picture. But what if you are tweeting for your small business? Should you use a photo, or should it be your logo instead? Here is one reason why I think you should use your own photo, and make sure it’s a good likeness. allcore_tech:…
At BlogWorld Expo, I finally got to meet two of Sheila Scarborough‘s travel connections, Doug at Authentic Seacoast (@AuthenticCoast) and Shannon Lane (@Cajun_Mama). We had a great discussion about what makes tourism tweets interesting. Doug said a regional tourism group had an intern handling their Twitter account. He would tweet things like, “I’m going to…
Blogging is a terrific tool for small businesses, but the work of blogging eventually can get you into a rut. That’s why so many blogs stagnate and even die after a while. Long-time friend Chris Brogan asked a pointed question about this, on Twitter. Is your blog phoning it in? Are you tagging along in…
Our friend Chel Wolverton helped me connect with award-winning novelist J.C. Hutchins to talk about promoting on little or no budget. I thought small businesses could take some lessons from his success. J.C. is best known for his high-tech 7th Son thriller trilogy, which he released as free serialized audiobooks from 2006-07. With more than 5 million…
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