Archive for July, 2009
Tips for Your Business’ Facebook® Profile
If your small business has a Facebook® page, you should check out this list of things you should—and shouldn’t—do when it comes to filling out your profile, connecting with other Facebook users, and sharing information. Meryl Evans gives a lot of great tips (I encourage you to read her whole article), but there are a few that really stand out to me:
Tip #5: Separate your business and personal lives. You can give your business some personality with Facebook®, but don’t turn your business’ profile into your own personal profile.
Tip #10: Get a personalized URL. This is a relatively new feature. Now you can set your profile’s URL to something like “facebook.com/mybusiness.” Your customers will be able to find your business easier, and it’ll also help you from an SEO perspective.
Tip #11: Include a link to your Facebook® page in your email signature. This is an effort-free way to ensure that word gets out about your profile.
Tip #24: Suggest friends to your network. If you think someone can be a valuable contact for one of your contacts, encourage the connection. They’ll appreciate the thought.
Tip #29: Keep your contacts updated on company events. If your business is going to be present at an event, is offering a sale, or has added new products, write about it in your status or in a note.
Facebook® is free, easy to use, and effective—that’s a rare combination these days, so take advantate of it! With a little help, your profile page can become a successful way to promote your small business.
To read Evans’ full article and find great advice on maximizing the potential of your Facebook® business page, visit http://webworkerdaily.com/2009/07/21/32-ways-to-use-facebook-for-business/.
Add comment July 24, 2009
Make Money During Your Down Time
Today I found an article at MainStreet.com that can apply to both small business owners and their small businesses. In “4 Ways to Make Money on a Day Off,” Stacy Baker gives a few pointers on how to use your free time to bring in—or save—a little money. Her ideas are geared toward individuals, but I think they can apply to businesses as well.
Baker describes how one can turn their passions and hobbies into money-making ventures. Many small business owners have already done this—a lot of startups were the result of someone wanting to turn their hobby into a job. But your small business can also make a little extra money by catering to its customers’ passions. Classes or workshops are a great example of this. If you provide goods to a particular group, you can also offer them the chance to enjoy using these goods at your store. Cooking classes, wine tastings, scrapbooking workshops, and sport training sessions are just some of the activities your business can offer during its off time that can help bring in a little extra money and market your store.
Next, Baker suggests working within your network to gain valuable resources for your business. Try starting a relationship with another business owner in your community that will be advantageous to both of you. Find someone whose expertise or products you need, and who also can benefit from what you and your business offer. This type of relationship is very opportunistic from a marketing viewpoint, and you’ll also save money in the process.
Check out Baker’s full article at http://www.mainstreet.com/article/smart-spending/bargains/deals/4-ways-make-money-day.
1 comment July 16, 2009
Ecommerce Merchandizing Tips
As a follow up to our “Are You Using E-Commerce Yet?” post, we’d like to urge all of our readers to follow the SMART Ecommerce Blog at http://www.smartecommerceblog.com/. Once there, you’ll find a collection of ecommerce-specific blog posts that will prove to be a valuable resource for everyone who owns an online store. Setting up an online store is the easy part; attracting customers and making sales, however, is another story. The folks at SMART Ecommerce Blog have made it their mission to help all ecommerce users find solutions to their most demanding problems, and with the upcoming holiday season looming, we can use all the ecommerce advice we can get.
During the holidays, many of us prefer to shop places where we can more than just one gift, and due to rising gas prices and crowded malls, Americans have been turning to the Internet as a time- and money-saving shopping option. To capitalize on this, online merchants can market their store as a ‘find something for everyone’ site. The SMART Ecommerce Blog post for today, “Merchandize Your Ecommerce Site Like the Pros,” offers advice on accomplishing this. Ecommerce merchants can make a few simple adjustments to their stores that will increase both product visibility and AOV (average order value), like adding a ‘best sellers’ column to each page. Other small details, like eye-catching photos, ‘free shipping’ banners, and generating a ‘related items’ list for each product in the customer’s shopping cart, can encourage your customers to purchase more products from your store during one transaction.
To view this full post, visit http://www.smartecommerceblog.com/2009/merchandize-your-ecommerce-site-like-the-pros/. Don’t forget to check out the rest of the SMART Ecommerce Blog for more tips on preparing your online store for the holiday season.
Add comment July 10, 2009
Are You Using E-Commerce Yet?
Now that it’s July, we’re in the 3rd quarter of the business year. So let’s talk about Q4! Now is the perfect time to start thinking about the holiday season. If you haven’t joined the ecommerce world yet, you need to read this article. In “Why Small Businesses Should Embrace E-Commerce,” Nisarat Sujatanond describes how an ecommerce website can help your business increase sales to both local and extended customers. In addition to widening your customer base, selling online can also help you gain valuable marketing insight. Thanks to web analytics, ecommerce merchants can get a grasp on who their customers are, what they’re looking for, and how they shop. Online stores can be easily marketed using this information, thanks to services like Twitter™, Facebook®, and PPC advertising.
To read Sujatanond’s full article, visit http://www.mysolutionspot.com/ecommerce-101/why-small-businesses-should-embrace-e-commerce-1602/.
1 comment July 8, 2009
Happy Fourth of July!
We would like to wish everyone a fun and safe 4th of July weekend from MySolutionSpot™. Whether you’re taking a break from your small business to celebrate with family and friends, or you’re throwing a huge holiday-weekend sale, we hope that you get the opportunity to appreciate everything that Indpendence Day represents.
Add comment July 2, 2009
