10 Facebook Tips for Small Businesses

Want to Facebook, but don't know how to make it work for your small business? Glen Stansberry, Creativity Sparker, from Wise Bread has 10 tips to get you started. For the full text, go to 10 Superb Ways For A Small Business To Friend Facebook.


June 21, 2011 (Excerpt)
Love it or hate it, Facebook has proven to be a major source of traffic and income for small business websites. A recent study showed that Facebook shares are worth almost three times as much as a tweet. And these nuggets from this compelling infographic ought to give a good indication as to how important Facebook has become to e-commerce in general:

•90 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know
•67 percent spend more online after recommendations.
If your small business is selling products online, then Facebook can be a fantastic way to add social proof and find more leads. Here are a few ways to snag some of that Facebook traffic for your small business website.

Watch Out for These 10 Common Small Business Mistakes

Opening a new business is an exhilarating and possibly daunting process. While there are countless rewards, financial and personal independence being at the top, there are common pitfalls that threaten every business owner. Below are 10 mistakes new business owners can make and how to avoid them.

1. Not knowing enough about the business you’re going into—It seems silly to say go in with your eyes open, but it does bear repeating. Don’t let your excitement be your downfall.

2. Not protecting your personal assets—You will be pouring your heart and soul into a new business, but don’t let it ruin your life or endanger your home. Consider setting up an LLC (limited liability corporation), get advice from other small business owners, and think about contacting a lawyer.

3. Not creating a unique, value-driven business—Start off on the right foot. If your business mirrors others too closely, there will be no overt reason for customers to choose you.

4. Not developing a business plan—Your business plan is the road map to where you want to go and how to get there. Do your research, get suggestions from your local small business association (SBA), or try the U.S. SBA (www.sba.gov). They’ll keep you from reinventing the wheel, and will often have information on loans/grants and one-on-one counseling.

5. Not setting the right price—Price drives the decision of whether customers contact you or not. Work with your suppliers for suggestions, look at other companies, and do your research.

6. Not changing or adapting as you go—Even though you have a road map, sometimes you need to ask for directions along the way or take a detour. Continually evaluate your business.

7. Not budgeting correctly or planning on making money right away—Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Have another source of income or some cushion and be realistic in your expectations.

8. Not marketing consistently—Don’t lose the momentum after one good campaign. Develop a plan and stick to it.

9. Not investing in people—Don’t get caught up in the bells and whistles of the latest gadgets or schemes. Invest in quality employees. They'll always drive your business and be the face of your company.

10. Not focusing on the big picture—Don’t get overwhelmed by the day-to-day necessities. Take a step back and keep track of your priorities. Management by crisis only leads to more chaos.

Concessions are Woven into the Fabric of History

Concession carts and food stands in one form or another have been part of the human mosaic since time can remember. Street vendors once pedaled meats and breads in their small wooden makeshift shacks along the sides of dirt roads. And now the concession trailer business is pervasive in our society. Anywhere that there is a gathering or even a decent amount of foot traffic we'll find at least one food cart waiting to satisfy our need for food and drink.

We can imagine the food carts of days gone by where fruits, vegetables, wine and fish were sold as opposed to today’s fare of hot dogs, hamburgers and nachos. Wicker baskets instead of iced-down metal bins held produce. Meat was cooked on a crude rotisserie instead of on a hot dog cooker or gas-powered grill. Berries and nuts took the place of bag snacks and candy bars. And instead of popcorn makers and pizza warmers, some type of apparatus for the drying of beef to make jerky could have been in use.

It's probably safe to assume that today we have foods that are much more convenient and require much less preparation than the concession foods of old. There's no need to skin or scale when you can simply place a few hot dogs on a roller or throw a few hamburger patties on a grill. No need to peel or wash when you can simply place pre-packaged foods on a counter. Therefore, it may also be safe to conclude that the early concessionaires worked a little harder than present day vendors! But we have had time to evolve and simplify just about every facet of our lives, vending included.

The events people attended, the games they watched and the available concession fare was quite different in the days of old. But the basic concept was the same: Have food and drink available for the hungry and thirsty, and everybody profits.

Concession Business a Good Way to Supplement Income

If you're thinking about starting a business in order to supplement your income or to eventually pursue full-time, do your due diligence first. Take a look at the different types of businesses that may be on the upswing and all that goes into running your own enterprise. The slow economy doesn’t make things easy these days, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t be successful if you happen upon the right opportunity.

The concession trailer business is something to consider. In the midst of the economic slowdown, people still need to eat and will always snack at events and gatherings. If you purchase a cart and familiarize yourself with the rules and regulations surrounding the operation of a food cart, the possibility exists that you can do pretty well in this business.

Some things to consider when starting a food concession business are what you are going to need for overhead, what type of food products you are going to sell and the number of personnel you will need to employ, not to mention viable locations for your cart or trailer.


Supplies

When you’ve decided on which concession trailer you are going to purchase you will know how much equipment you can fit inside of it. A hot dog cooker and popcorn makers are standard, and you can add other items later such as nacho warmers and possibly a fryer.


Events

There are endless possibilities; however, certifications are necessary in most areas in order to operate food carts, so be aware of this as you seek out venues. Public sporting events, carnivals and festivals are good places to start. City street corners can be lucrative, but are not always easy to get permits for.

There are never any guarantees, but as you gain experience, land some good venues and start to make contacts, you could make a good living and only have to answer to one boss ... you.

To blog…or not to blog. That is the question.

Corporate websites are often little more than interactive brochures that display basic information and describe what the business offers. But if you’re looking to do more — establish yourself as thought leaders in the industry, develop relationships with customers or gather feedback from prospects and clients — then a company blog is a much better choice.

"A blog can also be the centerpiece for a social media effort, driving visitors from Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn back to the blog through calls-to-action and landing pages," explains Douglas Karr, the author of Corporate Blogging for Dummies. "A blog has the flexibility to produce content easily, syndicate that content through any medium using RSS, and convert that audience into customers."

Unfortunately, if approached incorrectly, a company blog has just as much potential to embarrass your company or alienate customers. Mashable recently asked Karr, internet marketing experts, and small business bloggers about the most common mistakes that companies make when starting a blog — and how to avoid them.

• Starting Without a Strategy

Don’t take starting a company blog lightly. Even if only a handful of people visit it at first, those few people will likely be clients or have the potential to become them.

"The biggest mistake that most small businesses make when it comes to blogging is to assume that it’s an easy task," explains Marjorie R. Asturias, the president of web marketing firm Blue Volcano Media. "That sets them up for a cascade of mistakes, starting with the fact that they generally jump in without a discernible strategy, much less something as essential as an editorial calendar."

When thinking through your blog strategy, consider:

• Is a blog right for my business? "Some companies aren’t social and never will be. If you can’t keep generating content, then don’t start," explains Karr. "If you can’t be transparent, don’t start. If you can’t respond to negativity, don’t start. You need to understand the ramifications of making mistakes or blogging poorly before you decide haphazardly to begin."
  


• What business objective do I want to accomplish? Your goals should drive your content. If your goal is to connect with industry thought leaders, for instance, your content will be much different than if your goal is to drive more sales. Christian Russell, who runs sales blog Dangerous Tactics, found this out the hard way. "Originally I was operating on the belief that having a blog and posting good content regularly was the recipe for sales," he says. "But I found a huge separation between people reading my blog and those who were buying from me. I’ve only just recently begun making changes to the site to make offers much more clear, and I’ve already noticed important changes. Instead of just getting subscribers, I’m getting more inquiries and leads for what I sell." Karr says that acquisition, retention, building authority and customer support are all strategies to consider.
  


• Am I willing to allocate the necessary resources? As the saying goes: No pain, no gain. If you set up a blog, expect to dedicate time and resources. Josh Chan, an online marketing specialist at Chromatix design admits that his company’s blog underestimated the commitment. "Trying to come up with valuable content even just once a day means someone in your small business has to spend at least 30 minutes to an hour preparing and posting it," he says.
  


• Making it All About You

It’s a fact: Companies tend to talk about how great they are. But a blog exclusively discussing this point is bound for not-so-greatness. Before posting a shamelessly promotional blog entry, please note:

• A blog is not a press section. There should be a section on your site that is dedicated to company news, if you’re willing to share it. But using your blog this way can be detrimental. "Blogs allow consumers to view the human side of a business, but repeated promotional posts take away the brand’s personality and position the blog as a one-way advertising medium rather than an engagement platform," explains Whitney Sewell, a social media manager at Social Media Solutions.
  


• Your audience’s needs. "Businesses want to write dry, information-based articles that highlight their own accomplishments," explains Angela Neal, an online marking consultant based in Scotland. "I see blogs full of statistics and product details that are full of jargon and technical terms that only somebody within the company would know or understand."

Take a step back and think about what your readers want to learn about. Is it advice? Analysis? Industry news? Figure out what you can provide that is valuable to your readers.

• Failure to Link

Links should be an integral component of anything that calls itself a blog. To embrace them to their fullest:

• Don’t be afraid to link out: "Many business blogs get so carried away with minimizing PageRank leakage that they end up stifling their blog’s narrative potential," says Rohin Guha, a community manager at online marketing firm Blue Phoenix Media. "As a company, you want to present the impression that you know what’s happening in the world around you, and unless your daily archives can fill that role, you’ll have to turn to other sources." Guha suggests setting a minimum number of links for each blog post to get in the habit of linking out.



• Don’t forget to link to yourself: Digital filing company OfficeDrop hosted a blog on its site for more than a year without linking back to the main page. "Some of our blog entries are the most visited pages on our site, and some of them are very high PageRank sites," says Head of Marketing Healy Jones. "Now, we take advantage of the SEO power and readership of the blog to have SEO links all over the blog that link back to different pages on our website. Since the blog has a lot of search engine juice (it has a lot of inbound links), we now use it aggressively to transfer rank to the most important pages on our main site."
  


• Not Being Yourself

Being yourself means a couple of things:

• Don’t make the intern write the blog: Have someone who can represent the company write about it. An intern impersonating the CEO does not cut it.
  


• Let some "human" show: No one wants to read stiff, corporate jumble. Plus, it’s easier and more engaging to write like a person and not a corporate entity.
  


• A personal tone doesn’t mean that you blog about personal matters: "This isn’t the opportunity to post your favorite ’80s video off of YouTube," Karr says. "This is the opportunity to wow your audience by being a subject matter expert in your field. Keep your personal stories on your personal blog or on Facebook — where your next prospect won’t be offended by them."



• Blog what you know: What works for everyone else might not work for your company. When Stella Fayman started a blog for FeeFighters.com, she looked at other small businesses’ blogs and saw they were all blogging about social media. Seeing how this topic worked for them, she started blogging about social media even though it was only tangentially related to the company.

"After a while, I realized that in order to establish our brand as a small business finance resource, we needed to blog about what no one else talking about and what was more related to our business: small business operations and finance," she says. "Our traffic increased significantly after we made this switch."

• Ignoring Social Media

Your posts are not going to promote themselves. Get the word out by leveraging your company’s social media accounts. When you write a new post, discuss it on Twitter and Facebook. Make sure all of your social profiles include a link to your blog. When someone comments on your blog or contacts you about something you wrote through another channel, respond.

"Remember, the biggest benefit of the social web is building relationships, so you must make an effort to engage your readers and respond to them in a timely manner that not only acknowledges them, but makes them feel like valued members of your online community," says Susan Gunelius, CEO of marketing communications company KeySplash Creative.

Need Help Finding Events to Work?

When you're a mobile concessionaire, it's important to get your schedule filled up with good, high traffic events. Do you know where to go and who to contact for events in your area? Over the past few years, the use of the Internet to find events has increased and the results available have improved dramatically too. Since the special events season is about to get started, we thought it would be helpful to post those links in one, central article this year so that our readers can reference them easily. Here's the list!

1. Soccer Tournament Directory - www.soccertournament.us Soccer tournaments are great events for all types of concessionaires!


2. SoftballTournaments.com - National Softball Tournament Directory. Again, softball tournaments draw large crowds of people who don't want to leave to get snacks (for fear of losing their parking space) so they will happily patronize your stand. Nothing beats shaved ice or a snow cone on a hot day at a tournament!


3. USCarnys.com - USCarny's does a great job of compiling events of all sorts by state. It's a great resource and will definitely become a favorite for you!

**The next 3 resources are very similar in nature. However, we like to list all 3 of them because at times, each of them will list an event unique just to that particular site.

1. FairsandFestivals.net


2. Festivals.com


3. FestivalNet.com - Festival Network Online offers you the ability to use their site for free, but limits some of the information you are able to view.

To get detailed information about particular events, you need to join their site using one of their membership packages. Our suggestion is to try the free approach at first and see if you think it is a viable website that will serve your needs. If so, go ahead and join. We have joined in the past and felt that it was worth it due to the events we found and participated in by using their website.

We hope you will find these links useful!

Avoid These 6 Common Email Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses Make

If email seems a little old school to you, you’re right. Email turns 40 this year, and it’s being outpaced by texting, instant messaging and Facebook messaging. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg pointed out last year, email is too much of a “cognitive load” for younger people.

Yet you probably haven’t given up your Gmail account yet, have you? That’s because, despite the stigma of being a middle-aged technology, email is still useful and universally accepted. In fact, those who make a living from email marketing say there’s never been a better time to do what they do.

“Email marketing is getting more exciting because of some of the things you’re able to do with it,” says Chip House, vice president of relationship marketing at ExactTarget, “because of the ability to bake in social sharing. You can follow me on Facebook or tweet about this.”

For small businesses, email still represents a cheap, effective way to establish or maintain a relationship with clients. But there’s the rub. While the medium is fairly neutral-to-positive, the content has the power to either attract or repel. So before you hit “send” on your next batch email newsletters, take heed of these six common email marketing mistakes.

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