Small businesses do not have the funds or the resources of those large corporations. It’s tough to throw money at a problem when you do not have any to start with. That’s why no small business owner should neglect Facebook, Twitter, and other similar social networks. These services have leveled the playing field somewhat, giving small businesses the chance to gain a gathering online (using word of mouth and other types of marketing). Getting the most out of Facebook does not require you to spend a ton of money. Sure. You may have to spend a bit on ads to promote your Facebook pages or business. A professional page design could cost you a bit as well. But most tactics you can implement for free.

You can’t become a Facebook guru in one night. But there are simple steps you can take to take your business to the next level. If you are new to Facebook and have no idea how to get more out of it to take your business to the next level, here are 10 easy-to-implement tactics that should give you ideas:

1. Make a Professional-looking Facebook page: have you seen those Facebook pages that are all over the place. There is nothing wrong with that if it’s your personal Facebook profile that is messy and full of useless content. But your business page should focus on things that matter to your audience. The looks matter too. Your Facebook page could leave a long lasting impression on your prospects, so be careful what you show on your pages. It also never hurts to invest some money to put up a more professional looking Facebook page.
2. Add Interactive Applications: setting up a Facebook page should not be the only step you take to push your business. Don’t ignore some of those apps that can make it all more interactive for your Facebook fans. No silly apps though.
3. Throw Facebook Giveaways: Facebook giveaways can be very effective, if done right. We are not talking about those fake Facebook giveaways. Having exclusive giveaways for your Facebook fans can help spread the word about your business and increase your friends on the site. Don’t forget to read the terms and conditions of Facebook on contests. Continue reading Facebook 101: 10 Effective Facebook Tips for Small Business

Being involved in social networking sites does not only revolve around offering decent content. Whether you own a small business or an established one, you need to keep track of your content, links, and followers to maximizer your social media opportunity. Thankfully, there are a ton of tracking tools for Twitter, Facebook, and other websites that can help you stay on the top of your content’s progress across those networks.

There are a few premium tools that are worth paying for, but you don’t have to pay anything to get started with your social tracking process. Here is a mix of 5 free and paid social tracking tools that can help you track your business’ progress in social media:

Dlvr.it: a very handy tool for businesses that want to syndicate their content across the social web. Whether it’s LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter that you want to be involved in, Dlvr.it has you covered. It provides you with useful stats as well.

Su.pr: a syndication service by StumbleUpon that not only keeps track of all the love that your links get, it can also help bring more traffic to your business. Continue reading 5 Helpful Social Media Tracking Tools For Business

If you are running your business online or just happen to have an online division, you have probably taken the time to build a presence for your business on Facebook, Twitter, and other top social media sites. But there is more to social media than just opening an account on Twitter or Facebook. You are going to need to be involved and active on these sites. That’s where content tools come in. They make it easy to share and discover new content and track your own content’s progress. If you are taking time to share your work on these top social networking websites, you may as well track it all as well.

If you are looking for powerful social media tools to share and discover content online, here are 5 content tools you should try:

Thoora: a very easy way to discover the top content online. It keeps track of tweets, blogs, and everything in between. It also shows you the number of articles and posts about each entry and the frequency of mentions as well.

Cadmus: Cadmus is a real-time service that manages your stream (Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS) by displaying the most relevant content for you. A great tool to keep track of stories about your brand and staying on the top of your content.

Continue reading 5 Fresh Social Media Content Tools For Business

Social networking is one of the most popular trends these days. Many small businesses and individuals participate in social activities and create lots of user-generated content on a consistent basis. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are all great websites that every small business owner needs to be involved on. In addition to those, there are niche social networking websites that you should take time to get familiar with and expand your presence on. But what if you want to create your very own social networking website? Maybe your niche is too narrow or nobody has thought about creating a social community around it. A few years ago, you would have needed serious funds to get it done, but the startup costs have come down significantly these days.

You won’t even have to start from scratch to go about launching your own social networking website. There are many open source and proprietary solutions that enable you to get the job done. In fact, here are 3 top social networking software that make starting a niche social networking service a piece of cake:

Ning: a year ago, I would have called Ning a service that was only useful to beginners. But the service has been improved in many ways, and it is so flexible anyone can use it to build a social portal or a community around a niche. You can not only create a social community on the site, you can also use your own domain (for some additional fee) to take better control of your social network. Continue reading 3 Ways To Start Your Own Social Networking Website

There are thousands of social networking sites available on the Internet these days, and everyday a few more pop out of nowhere. Every business, whether large and small, should take time to get familiar with those networks that can provide it with a decent return on investment. Small businesses, especially, need to be involved in the popular social networking sites in their niche to get the word out about their business and save money in the process. But even if you are not interested in pursuing social networking services at this point, you should take time to register your brand name.

Going through hundreds of websites to search for your name and reserve your name can be time consuming. Not if you are using some of the social media profile management tools that are available. They not only save you time reserving your brand name across the social media, they make the process painless. If you are looking for such a tool, here are 4 social media username tools you should check out:

NameChk: lets you find out whether your favorite username (which should be your brand name) is taken on those popular social networking websites.

My Friends Call Me: very similar to the above tool. I do love the fact that it classifies the social networks so you know which one applies to your niche. It’s pretty slick too. Continue reading How To: Secure Your Name Across Social Media

For years experts have been talking about how video is the future. Video marketing on the web is not the future anymore. It’s the present, and if you are not taking advantage of viral videos to drive more customers to your business, you are seriously missing the boat. Video marketing can not only get your business exposure on YouTube and other top video sites, it can also get you some extra hits from search engines. So if you are not taking time to develop a real video strategy for your business, you should re-think your strategy. With that in mind, if you are ready to start making your own promotional videos, here are 7 places that you can submit them to:

YouTube: YouTube doesn’t need any introduction. Your videos will most likely get the most hits on YouTube, and the search engines will bring even more traffic to your videos if you optimize your videos.

Viddler: Viddler is made for those who are looking to create branded videos. The pro plans can be pricey, but the service is well worth the investment if you are into vlogging. The prices are not that bad if you are getting real results with you videos. Great for web shows too.

Vimeo: Vimeo is one of the best alternatives to YouTube. In fact, many professionals use Vimeo to share their videos with the world. It may not get as much traffic as YouTube, but I found it easier to work with. Many businesses are using Vimeo as a way to give demo of their products or communicate with their customers.

DailyMotion: yet another underrated video sharing website. There are a lot of European videos on the site, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use this service to get more impressions for your videos. You can also partner up with DailyMotion and get rolling with MotionMakers program. In that case, you can expect your videos to be promoted by DailyMotion.

MetaCafe: MetaCafe was one of the first videos sites that started compensating video producers. Video makers who had their content go popular on MetaCafe were somewhat compensated for their work. MetaCafe is community driven, so make sure your videos are high quality and useful or the community will let you have it.

Veoh: Veoh has been around for years. It’s a platform for business professionals and all other types of publishers to get their work in front of Veoh’s community. Once you upload your video, you are going to have the opportunity to use the tools available to promote your videos.

TubeMogul: one of the best ways to keep track of your videos and their performance across popular video sharing websites. All you have to do is make a killer video, upload it to TubeMogul, and let the service upload your videos to top video sharing sites. It definitely saves time.

What’’s your favorite video sharing site for business?

In case you haven’t noticed, Google Wave has been taking the web by storm. Google Wave is a new tool by one of the most innovative companies in the world that is expected to change the way we communicate with our friends, customers, and everyone in between. Wave is e-mail on steroids. The e-mail system has been around for a while, but the technology is somewhat outdated for this day and age. Not when you can share videos, audio files, and other type of files with your friends. Not when conversations are more dynamic. Not when Twitter is around.

Google Wave is not that different what you have come to see on e-mail and social media sites. It’s just a combination of everything. It facilitates rich communications with your contacts. You can extend what you see on Google Wave through robots, gadgets, and other extensions. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could receive your tweets on a Wave and be able to respod to invidual tweets right there?  How about using your Wave account to allow multiple people to tweet on the behalf of your company? How about adding gadgets that keep you informed on information that matter to you on a daily basis. That’s all possible using Google Wave.

Continue reading Google Wave for Small Business – Part I: Intro

You don’t have to be a genius to realize the power of Twitter. Google may be the king of search these days, but Twitter and Facebook are expected to continue their momentum and attract a whole lot more traffic in the future. Following and get followed on Twitter doesn’t stop for weekends and holidays. If you have been active on these sites, you have probably seen all the noise that could be going around. And if you happen to be popular, you are going to have to manage your followers as well. It would have been a bit more difficult to get all this done on Twitter in the past, but thanks to Twitter lists, you can create lists and follow people in a more organized fashion.

Twitter has not yet rolled out the feature yet, so not everyone can take advantage of the lists. But the lucky ones who can will see a new number next to their number of followers. That number will show the lists that you are included on. Obviously, the more you are listed, there is a good chance that more people find you more useful. So lists are essentially #followfriday on steroids.

If you are a small business owner, hoping to gain some traction on Twitter, lists are godsend for you. They allow you to classify the people you are following under different lists and engage them more effectively. You can create public and private lists of people who may be interesting to your business or those who are talking about your business or niche. You can then decide on the message you want to communicate with each and every list. Continue reading Manage Your Social Media Process More Effectively with Twitter Lists

Facebook is a great community to be a part of to catch up with old friends, keep up with the current ones, and even find contacts and new friends. A lot of people do use Facebook to just waste their time, and there is nothing wrong with that. Everybody is responsible for themselves and their own times. If you are a business owner or want to start an online business, you can’t afford to do the same. There are plenty of ways that Facebook can help you take your business to the next level and make some money in the process as well.

Paul Dunay has done such a wonderful job with his presentation on this topic, that everyone should take time to go over his recommendations on this subject.

1. CafePress: I have talked about CafePress and how you can make money from it in the past. By using Facebook, you can sell products on Facebook and put more money in your pocket. Here is the app that lets you do just that. Continue reading 5 Ways To Make Money On Facebook

Linkedin is one of the top social networking sites on the Internet these days. It has been around for a while now, but it still doesn’t get the respect that it deserves. Many businesses focus too much on Facebook and Twitter and don’t pay enough attention to Linkedin and similar services. In reality, Linkedin is an amazing network to be a part of if you want to build business relationships, gather leads, and network with experts in your industry. Being involved on Linkedin is more than just creating a profile and telling others what you do for a living. Creating a killer profile should be on the top of your agenda but it shouldn’t be your only contribution to the Linkedin community. Depending on your business model, there are plenty of ways to reach out to your prospects on Linkedin and build long lasting relationships.

If you are looking for ideas on how to use Linkedin to build leads for your business, here are some tactics that you can try:

• Your Linkedin Profile: your profile is your first impression on folks who find you on the web or through LinkedIn. Make sure you have information on your skills and recent projects. Add your relevant experience to your work history and don’t forget to mention your education. Don’t forget to use the right keywords so people can find you through search engines and Linkedin search. Make sure you provide an accurate description of what your talents are and how you can help others.
• Past colleagues: don’t wait for others to find you on LinkedIn. Take action and add your former colleagues to your network. You never know when you are going to need their help and vice versa. Don’t let your past relationships to go to waste.
• Linkedin Groups: Linkedin groups are a great way to connect with others and build your network. Just don’t join them. Participate in them. Join sub-groups and volunteer for activities in those groups.
• Relationship Management: don’t forget that Linkedin is about networking with others. In order to do that, you need to be connected with them. Being an open networker can help you a long way towards achieving your professional goals. You should also get your Twitter and Facebook friends to join you on Linkedin.
• Contact Management: thanks to LinkedIn, you have a decent contact management system that you should definitely use to manage your professional networks. Don’t hesitate to add new connections from the groups that you are a part of or people who have answered your questions on Linkedin.
• Your blog/websites: you should take time to add your blogs and websites to your Linkedin account. Don’t forget to change “My Website” text link to something more descriptive.
• Share Info: whether it’s sharing articles, answering to polls, helping others with their questions, or sharing your travel information through Linkedin applications, you have got plenty of choices to be involved on Linkedin.
• Add Company: don’t forget to add your company or business to Linkedin. Don’t just rely on your personal profile to push your business.
• Recommendations: don’t be shy to ask for recommendations on LinkedIn. It’s much easier to get folks to recommend you on LinkedIn. Your clients and past colleagues can provide your business with much needed boost to score more clients in the future.
• Turn on Applications: you should have done this by now, but if you haven’t, make sure to check out the applications available on Linkedin and add the appropriate ones to your page.

Linkedin is a wonderful community to be a part of, and the noise is much lower on Linkedin than Twitter or Facebook. If you have taken time to get more involved on Twitter and Facebook, there is no reason you should take the time to do the same on Linkedin. You’d be surprised once you see your results.