Are You Hiding From Your Customers on Social Media?

You’ve decided you’re going to be a company your customers love. To do it, you’ve dedicated real resources to social media, you’re listening before you speak, and you’re creating systems to help you manage what’s being said about you. Now you just have to stop hiding from customers.

Wait,what?

One of the most common mistakes small business owners make in social media is that they set up shop and then forget to tell anyone about it. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes they expect their customers will find them, and other times it just slips through the cracks. The brands that do well on social media are the ones that actively promote their accounts. After all, a customer can’t“like” a page they don’t know about, just like they can’t do business with a brand they’ve never met. If you don’t have a plan for how to introduce your social media presence to customers, you’re essentially hiding from them. And you need to stop it.

Where are some easy places to start and show off your social media presence?

Your Website

The first place you should be highlighting your social media presence is on your own website. Your company’s site is where many of your customers will go first to get information about your brand. It’s your job to not only give them trusted information, but also point them to other sources where they can learn more about you. That includes displaying links to your social profiles. Whether you highlight your Facebook page directly from your home page likePetcodoes, or create a page completely dedicated to all your social media accounts like theAmerican Red Cross, is up to you. What’s important is that you let people know how you want them to connect with you. The customers who visit your website are already familiar with your brand and probably want to support you. Give them an easy way to do that.

Include Social Links in E-Mail Newsletters

Another place to show off your social media presence is in the e-mail newsletters that you routinely send to your customers. Including a simple call -out box where you mention your company’s LinkedIn group, your Facebook profile or your YouTube account is a great way to encourage users to follow and engage with these accounts. Why wouldn’t a customer want to subscribe to your YouTube account to get product How Tos? Social media and e-mail marketing work really well when combinedbecause they both allow customers to develop a more personal relationship with the brands they love. You’re able to target the customers who have done business with your company (and are familiar with it), but who may not check your site every day. Research also shows that e-mails with social calls to action have a30 percent higher click-through ratethan e-mails without them. So make sure you’re asking them not only to follow you, but to share your content, as well.

Put It on Your Business Cards

You’re never without a pile of business cards. You bring them to local networking events, to mixers, and even when you go to the grocery store. But what does that card look like? Have you upgraded it to encourage people to not only call you, but also connect with you on Twitter? Does the card have the URL for your Facebook page or a QR code they can scan into their phone? If it doesn’t, it may be time to give your business card an upgrade. For example, my business card for my SEO consulting company Outspoken Media invites contacts to connect with me both on my personal Twitter account and onthe company account. And it works. I often return home from events and recognize many of my new followers as folks I shared a drink or conversation with when I was out and about. Don’t just stop with your business cards, of course. Include your social media profiles on all offline advertising and promotional efforts. You want to integrate social media into all other marketing efforts your company is doing.

Put It on a Shirt

The T-shirt above belongs to myLos Angeles chiropractorfriend Michael Dorausch. He’s @chiropractic on Twitter and he’s often seen wearing this shirt at conferences, in his office and or just around town. Not only is it a good conversation starter, but it also piques interest in who he is and what he does. After all, if you’re brazen enough to wear your Twitter handle on your chest, you’re probably someone I want to check out when I get home. A stunt like this also makes your brand more memorable in the eyes of customers.

Those are some easy ways to stop hiding from your customers on social media and to let them know you’re out there. What methods are you using to promote your social media accounts and invite customers to connect with you?

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5 Steps To Being A Company Customers Love

I’m contacted fairly often by small business owners curious as to how they should handle this social media thing. They’re confused because they see companies that are doing it well, but they also see companies doing it horribly, horribly wrong. They want to make sure they stay on the high road and don’t anger customers in the process. They want to be a company that customers love. But how can they use social media to do that? How can they leverage social media in a way that’s not sleazy, but instead, truly shows that they’re trying to get to know and help their customers?

Here are a few ways to make customers fall in love with you through social media.

Be Accessible: When you make the investment to put resources toward social media, a big part of that should be dedicating time to be spent there. That’s what customers want to see. They want to know that if they have a concern, they can send you a message and that you’ll respond quickly. They want to see that if they mention your name + a problem, you’ll see it and get in touch with them. It doesn’t take much tomonitor your brand on social media, however, the benefits are huge. To take advantage of social media, you have to be social. And that means really being there and making yourself accessible.

Create a system for handling issues: When someone reports an issue via social media, make sure it’s put into your customer service queue so the right people see it. Create your ownsocial media command centerto help you keep track of the people you’re talking to and what you’re talking to them about. As a user, there’s nothing more frustrating that having to re-explain the same problem to a member of the same company, especially if it’s via the same social media account. The right arm should know what the left is doing.

Have real conversations: Listen, I know you’re on social media because you’re hoping it will increase sales and leads. Your customers know that, too. But that doesn’t mean every conversation has to be about work or you telling me how great your company is. Customers want to hear about the you that exists outside of work hours. They want to get to know you and they want you to show you care by getting to know them. Relationships are built in the details. In the good mornings, in the sharing of your favorite TV shows and in sharing what you had for dinner. Don’t forget to be a person when you’re busy trying to be a business.People do business with other people, not with logos.

Listen to feedback: The cool thing about social media is that you have a constant audience of people willing to give you feedback, positive and negative. Use it. Companies historically have had to pay for that level of transparency. Social media gives it to you for free. Make note of the things people like about your brand, listen to what they don’t like, and ask them questions designed to help you better how you serve them. The more conversations you have with customers about your brand, the more you’ll learn about what they want and the more invested you’ll make them in your success.

Apologize when it warrants it: You’re not perfect and at some point you’re probably going to goof. When that happens, instead of making excuses or trying to save face, just admit it. You may be familiar with a company called Foiled Cupcakes. They’ve done an incredible job using Twitter and social media to build their brandand they’re one of those brands customers really love. However, earlier this week they screwed up and upset one of their customers. What did they do? They blogged about the experience, explaining what happened, apologizing for the mistake, and telling customers how they’ll prevent it from happening again. The type of goodwill they racked up in that one moment? Priceless.

The truth is, becoming a company people love on social media isn’t much different from acting like one they love off it. We need to stop pretending it is. Focus on making your customers over-the-moon happy. That’s how you become great. Online and as a brick and mortar.

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How to Get States Into the New Economy

Many think tanks produce dashboards of economic indicators to help government officials formulate public policy. While these tools are almost always well-intentioned, sometimes they aren’t well thought out, making them problematic to follow. One example isState New Economy Index, produced by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

This index is designed to provide policy makers with a set of 26 measures to guide efforts to move states to the“new economy,” which the two foundations say is “knowledge-based, globalized, entrepreneurial, IT-driven, and innovation-based.”

The effort is flawed because the designers of the dashboard combine uncorrelated and negatively correlated measures to create overarching indicators. Because combinations of unrelated measures aren’t indicators of anything, the dashboard isn’t useful.

For those who find this point too academic to follow, let me give an example to clarify what I mean. The report on the index says that to adjust to the new economy, states need more“economic dynamism” and offers several measures of what more dynamic places look like. The authors explain that states with a lot of “job churn” (a lot of businesses starting and failing); more “fast growing firms” (a high share of Inc 500 and Deloitte Technology Fast 500 firms); highervalue of initial public offerings as a share of worker earnings; and a larger fraction of the population starting businesses (adjusted for how fast the state has been growing), have more economic dynamism, which makes them more successful in the new economy.

At first glance, the economic dynamism measure seems useful. It says that a state needs a lot of people starting businesses, more businesses starting and failing, more high growth companies, and more initial public offerings, to be successful in the new economy.

The problem appears when we look at the measures of economic dynamism. Several of them don’t move in concert. Across states, the job churn measure correlates only 0.03 with the fast growing firms measure and -0.01 with the IPOs measure. This means that states that are high on job churn don’t have a lot of fast growing firms or IPOs. Similarly, the measure of entrepreneurial activity doesn’t correlate very highly with the measure of fast growing firms(0.13) or IPOs (0.11). That is, states with a high share of the population starting businesses don’t have a lot of high growth firms or IPOs.

The job churn measure does correlate reasonably well (0.51) with the indicator of entrepreneurial activity. States that have more new firms starting and failing also tend to have a higher share of their population starting businesses, and vice versa.

If we look at a measure that isn’t part of the economic dynamism index, venture capital – the amount of venture capital invested in the state as a percentage of earnings of workers in the state – the nature of the problem becomes even clearer. The job churn indicator correlates only -0.07 with the venture capital measure and only 0.16 with the indicator of entrepreneurial activity. States that have a lot of businesses starting and failing and a higher share of the population starting businesses don’t have a lot of venture capital.

Which states have a lot of venture capital? The ones with a lot of IPOs (the correlation between the measures of venture capital and IPOs is 0.64) and fast growing firms (the correlation between the indicators of venture capital and fast growing firms is 0.45).

Together these measures show states that have a lot of IPOs also have a lot of venture capital and fast growing firms and states that have a lot of job churn also have a lot of entrepreneurial activity. But states that are high on the second set of factors aren’t high on the first set.

This pattern suggests an important policy issue that is obscured by the State New Economy Index: Whatever factors give states a lot of venture capital, IPOs and fast growing firms are different from those that give states lots of people starting and failing at business creation.

Government officials can’t encourage everything and often have to choose one policy to promote at the expense of another. Given the data pattern described above, which alternative would you hope your state’s leaders would choose: policies that generate more venture capital, IPOs, and fast growing firms or policies that stimulate a lot of new business starts and stops?

Many of us would prefer the former. And that’s where the harm comes from New Economy Index. It obscures the difference between states that have a lot of high growth entrepreneurial activity and states that have a lot of high volume entrepreneurial activity. This lack of clarity leads policy makers to believe that they can get more high growth entrepreneurship by getting more high volume entrepreneurship. Unfortunately, places appear to be strong in just one or the other.

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One in Seven Small Businesses Have No Internet Security

There may be an ocean between the U.S. and the U.K., but some of their small businesses seem to share in the same foolishness. According to theAVG Small Business Landscape Report(PDF), one in seven small businesses polled in the U.S. and the U.K. have no Internet security software or system in place at all.Nothing, zip, nada!

Internet security can easily become one of those things that you meant to get around to, but every thing else was more important. Client on the line and you need to make the sale. Presentation in the morning and you need to get prepared. Staff meeting in 30 minutes, no time for lunch. You feel like you are handling it all as best you can, but something slips through the cracks.

So what if Internet security issues are at the back of your mind and come last in the budget?You can survive any security breach, if it comes to that. But whyshouldit come to that? Why leave it to chance like that? In this day and age, every business should have some type of Internet security plan.

Believe me, I understand the small business shuffle firsthand. It’s easy to slip into it. But the cost is too high. Small businesses cannot afford days of downtime because our computer system is compromised or our files are victimized. An Internet security breach can happen too easily to leave safety to chance.

If you need help, check out AVG’s Business Resource Centre. They have multiple free downloads including:

1. Securing your startup or small business
2. Five steps to securing your business website and its content
3. Guide for businesses on cyber criminals and who to protect against

And yes, you can get hacked even with an Internet security plan in place (it’s happened to me), but planning greatly decreases the chances of an attack and the amount of downtime should one occur. Having your site down for one hour versus two days is a totally different game, and having a team in place to restore your data positively impacts your downtime.

In the end, the Internet security issue is solvable by planning in the beginning, partnering with the right people and using the right products. Online, security is required.

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Latest Conferences and Webinars for Small Businesses

This list of small business events is brought to you as a community service bySmall Business TrendsandSmallbiztechnology.com, every two weeks.

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Weatherhead 100 Awards
December 07, 2010, Mayfield Heights, OH

Join COSE and the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University as they celebrate Northeast Ohio’s fastest growing companies at the prestigious 2010 Weatherhead 2010 Awards Dinner.

Grow Your Business with Social Media Marketing for Business
December 7, 2010, Albany, NY

Learn best practice Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing strategies to grow your business!

Topics Include: Search Engine Behavior, Consumer Behavior, What it takes to get found on line, How to drive increased traffic to your Web site, the best way to attract qualified customers, the factors that affect your search engine rankings, the impact of search technology on your bottom line, Pay Per Click Strategy, Organic Search Strategy, Web 2.0, Social Media Marketing, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter,& YouTube, Web marketing trends, Putting it all together.

Some Assembly Required– Preparing Your 2011 Email Marketing Plan
December 8, 2010, 2:00pm EST, Webinar

In this webinar, Melanie Attia, Product Marketing Manager for Campaigner, a leading email marketing service, will discuss how small businesses can easily create and execute a successful 2011 email marketing program. Specifically, Melanie will discuss:

Where to start– what you should look at before you begin your planning.

What to look for– key elements you need to be aware of when choosing an email marketing service for 2011.

What to avoid– mistakes and pitfalls that can pull your 2011 plans off-track.

What to talk about– how to ensure your emails resonate with customers and keep them coming back for more.

Move the Need: Powerful Prospecting Strategies
December 7, 2010

Are your prospecting efforts getting you the results you need to meet and exceed goals? What new and energizing prospecting strategies can you use to boost sales? During this seminar you will learn profitable lead generation tactics to find new clients. You will explore new, creative avenues that can help you more effectively prospect for new clients, and build a team of trusted referral partners.

Four Tips to Make Money by Going Mobile
December 8, 2010, 2:00pm EST, Webinar

Consumers are using mobile devices for everything from downloading coupons to searching for the nearest restaurant. As a business owner, you can leverage mobile’s booming popularity and make it work as a revenue generating vehicle for your business.

Author and Entrepreneur magazine columnist Kim T. Gordon, one of the country’s foremost experts on small business growth, will discuss the latest trends in mobile, specifically how you can tap into the latest trends to win sales from mobile shoppers.

Year-end Tax Essentials for Small Business Owners
Thursday, December 9, 2010, 1:00 pm EST, Online chat

The U.S. Small Business Administration is hosting a text chat on year-end tax planning for small businesses. The guest expert will be Edward S. Karl, Vice President of Taxation for the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA). The event will focus on tax deductions and credits you may be able to take advantage of before the end of the year, to reduce your taxes. Note: There is not an audio format for the online chat– you cansubmit your questions in advance here.

Tweet Chat: Leadership for your Small Biz
December 9, 1-2:30 pm EST, follow the #netsol hashtag on Twitter

Featuring guest tweeter, Terry Starbucker (@starbucker), co-founder of SOBCon and renowned leadership speaker. Through the chat you will understand:
· How can thinking and acting positive serve as a motivator?
· As a leader, how do I handle problems? Mistakes? Bad News?
· What should my real role be as a leader of my business?
· What are some simple non-verbal tactics I can use to become a better leader?
Registerhere.

The Science of Blogging
December 9, 2010 at 2:00pm EST, webinar

Blogging is one of the most important activities businesses can undertake to increase their inbound marketing results. Join Dan Zarrella, Social Media Marketing Scientist, as he discusses an unprecedented data collection that will teach you how to optimize your blogging efforts for maximum results.

Rocked the Recession: Startup the Nation
December 9-10, 2010, Chicago

750 members of Chicago’s entrepreneurial community will gather for a day of speakers and panels designed to give advice and inspiration to entrepreneurs. Sessions will cover starting a business, growing your business, selling, marketing, PR, funding, scaling, building a team, turning ideas into action, branding, creativity, social media, incubators, blogging, viral videos, and more.

Social Marketing Made Simple Presented by SCORE-NYC
December 13, 2010, New York City

Wendi Caplan-Carroll will present“Social Media Marketing Made Simple” in a 90 minutes work-shop. This session will cover some of the strategies and best practices to get the most out of your social media activities including time management and measuring the return of your activities. Wendi will talk about what social media marketing really is, how to incorporate it into your business life without losing productivity and look at how other businesses are using these low-cost tools to gain visibility, develop relationships and drive sales and response.

E-Commerce 104: Shopping Cart Recovery
December 14, 2010, Brooklyn, NY

Join the Fort Greene Fashion Group as Patrick Hardy presents“Shopping Cart Recovery”. Do you have an online store? Is your site now generating the income you wish it could? Well, ponder this…Over 60% of all shopping carts on the internet are abandoned by shoppers.

Patrick Hardy will discuss why shopping carts are abandoned by potential customers and tips on how to recover some of these lost sales. This seminar will help you pull those {almost} lost dollars away from your competition and back into your pocket.

How Facebook Creates Leads& a Community: A Real Case Study
December 14, 2010, 10:00am PST, Webinar

Social Media isn’t magic but when you take the right steps it can have a significant impact on your business. This webinar will feature first-hand tips& lessons from Dan Kalm, an insurance agent who has seen positive business results on Facebook. This session will be co-moderated by Clara Shih, author of the bestselling social media book“The Facebook Era: Tapping Online Social Networks to Market, Sell, and Innovate,”  and Chris Andrew, small business success manager at Hearsay. This session will be broken into 3 segments:  the small business opportunity on Facebook; discussion with Dan about the use of social media and Hearsay; 10 best practices for Facebook pages that result in real growth.

Doing Business in Brazil, by The Economist
December 14– 15, 2010, Online

The Economist is hosting a free“Doing Business in Brazil” online fair, live on December 14th and 15th.  During this 2-day online event, you can speak with professionals to help you launch or expand your business in Brazil.  You can chat online with consultants, lawyers, bankers and investors.  You can get practical advice to help you enter the Brazilian market.  And you can access all resourcesand business connections in one place.   To register free, visithttp://bit.ly/i4ggz5.

Create A“Get Moving” Marketing and Sales Plan for 2011
January 6, 2010 1:00-2:00 PM EST, Webinar

Want a plan that focuses your time and money? Rather than complex, time-consuming, dust-collecting volumes, you need a plan that gives you structure and flexibility. You need a live guide that you can look to for direction, and also for options.   In this webinar speaker Jeanne Rossomme of Roadmap Marketing will help you focus on the key actions and key measures that can help you guide your business in the New Year.

SCORE QuickSTART Series Workshops
January 15, 2011 (first of 6 weekly sessions) Port Charlotte, FL

The six session QuickSTART Series workshops for the nascent entrepreneur (0-18 mo in business) will be presented on six consecutive Saturdays beginning January 15, 2011, 9:30 a.m. to noon, at the Mid County Library in Port Charlotte. Attendees will receive an overview of how to launch a new business in Florida. DetailsHere.

Entrepreneur Magazine’s Growth 2011 Conference
January 20, 2011, Atlanta, GA

* Nearly a dozen hands-on seminars to help your business soar to your highest vision
* Growth strategies from top business authors, radicals and visionaries
* Meet& tweet with host Amy Cosper, editor in chief of Entrepreneur
* Networking throughout the day to build partnerships and connections
* Business growth perspectives from the Entrepreneur of 2010 winners

Tory Johnson’s 2011 Spark& Hustle National Tour
Multiple Dates and Cities Feb-July 2011

Whether you’re just getting your feet wet with this“business thing,” barely keeping your head above water, or finally ready to swim with the sharks, Spark& Hustle is the place to learn (exactly) how to transform your fledgling (or floundering) business into a wildly profitable venture.

NAVSEA Small Business Conference
February 1, 2011, Miami, FL

Small Business Owners are invited to attend the NAVSEA Small Business Conference, sponsored by the Program Executive Offices (PEOs) for Aircraft Carriers, Integrated Warfare Systems (IWS), Littoral and Mine Warfare (LMW), Ships, and Submarines. This conference will provide a forum for Small Business Owners to connect with senior Navy and Industry leaders to learn, collaborate, and explore ways in which they can offer their products and services in support of Navy warfare programs.

For more information regarding this exciting event, please contact the Small Business Conference Planning Team at (703) 941-0600, or by email at mandi.jackson@sbconference.org.

Disney Institute’s Business Owner& Management Conferences: Quality Service and Brand Loyalty
February 28-March 2, 2011, Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Presented in partnership with Disney Institute and Northpoint Services.“Benchmark your Business to Disney’s” and discover the strategies and practices that contribute to Disney’s world renowned success at this conference that includes an exclusive “Business Excellence: Behind-The-Scenes” tour.

12th Annual U.S. Department of Energy Small Business Conference& Expo
May 10-12, 2011, Kansas City, MO

The event will feature plenaries, educational workshops, an Exhibit Hall with over 200 exhibitors/sponsors, as well as business matchmaking sessions. Over 1,600 attendees will represent all levels of federal, state, and local government agencies, the small business community, large/prime contractors, minority educational institutions, and many more!

The largest civilian contracting agency within the Federal government, DOE spent over $25 billion in contracts in FY 2010. The 12th Annual DOE Small Business Conference& Expo is a great opportunity for Small Business owners, large companies, and universities alike to network and partner.

To find more small business events, contests and awards, visit ourSmall Business Events Calendar.

If you are putting on a small business contest, award or competition, and want to get the word out to the community, please submit it through ourEvents& Contests Submission Form(We do not charge a fee to be included in this listing— it is completely free to list your event.) Only events of interest to small business people, freelancers and entrepreneurs will be considered and included.

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One on One: Dan Siroker of Optimizely

Welcome to another in our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. Dan Siroker, CEO and Co-Founder of Optimizely and formerly Director of Analytics for the Obama presidential campaign, spoke with Brent Leary in this interview, which has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, page down to the loudspeaker icon at the end of the post.

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Small Business Trends: Can you tell us a little bit about your background?

Dan Siroker:I used to work as a product manager at Google, where I worked on Google Chrome. I left in 2008 to join the Obama campaign as the director of analytics. That experience was the spark for Optimizely, a product to do really easy A/B testing and website optimization.

Small Business Trends: What are some of the things you learned {during the campaign} that helped you cofound Optimizely?

Dan Siroker:We learned that the biggest opportunity for improvement– be it on website optimization or a compelling new program– was to question the core assumptions. To say,“Maybe we don’t know what’s the most effective splash page for BarackObama.com. Let’s run an experiment to find out.”That core lesson is what we have taken to Optimizely, enabling people to run those experiments and answer those questions themselves.

Small Business Trends: You cofounded Optimizely with another ex-Googler, Pete Koomen. Why did you start Optimizely when you did?

Dan Siroker:We started Optimizely because of the pain we felt during the campaign. Our goal was to make it easy to do an experiment, but also to get results in real time to make quick decisions. Our goal is to make it dramatically easier to improve your website through A/B testing. It’s self-serve; anyone can come to our website at www.Optimizely.com and get started. Even if they are not technical, they can create a variation of their website and see what impact those changes have on engagement, signups and sales.

Small Business Trends: Can you explain what A/B testing is and how a service like yours makes it easier?

Dan Siroker:A/B testing is a technique used by marketers to test the effectiveness of different content. The technique was originally pioneered through direct mail. Companies would send different mail content to different addresses and then measure which content had the highest response rate. A/B testing online is the same idea. Optimizely enables you to create variations to your website easily and run an A/B test. Optimizely {runs the statistics} and tells you which variation wins.

Small Business Trends: What were some things you took from your role as Director of Analytics that would apply to a small or midsized company that’s just starting to analyze how impactful their website is?

Dan Siroker:First, define quantifiable success metrics. Very early in the {Obama} campaign, we identified what we were trying to optimize. We looked at things like average dollar per page view on our donation sites, or dollars per recipient of our {outbound} e-mails. Defining and measuring enabled us to know whether we were going in the right direction as we made changes. Without a quantifiable sense of what your goals are, it is very easy to optimize for the wrong thing.

Small Business Trends: Does Optimizely integrate with Google Analytics?

Dan Siroker:Optimizely is directly integrated with Google Analytics with just one click. You can get all of your Optimizely data to show up in Google Analytics, {slice} and dice the variations you {create with} Optimizely, and see the impact they have on things you are measuring with Google Analytics.

Small Business Trends: Optimizely works on traditional Web pages, but can you also use it on pages running within Facebook?

Dan Siroker:Yes. Recently the Democratic National Committee created an application called the Commit to Vote Facebook app. It used Optimizely to dramatically improve the virility of the app so more people would share it. Optimizely works on any website where you can add a one-line Java Script snippet.

Small Business Trends: You’ve been working on Optimizely for about a year, and you just announced getting financing. Was that a difficult process?

Dan Siroker:We went through the process with the hope of finding people who could add value to the company beyond just dollars. Our angel investors include Ron Conway, an early investor in Google, Facebook and Twitter, and Paul Buchheit, who created Gmail and was the guy behind AdSense. We looked for people who were previously entrepreneurs, but also understood the space and could appreciate what we were trying to do. Our vision is to enable businesses to make better data-driven decisions. We see A/B testing as the first of many products that can help do that.

Small Business Trends: Any advice for folks that are just starting a new business?

Dan Siroker:Scratch your own itch. Build a product that you wish you had. We are building the product that I wish we had {during the campaign}.

Small Business Trends: Where can folks learn more about you and the company?

Dan Siroker:Go towww.Optimizely.comand get started today. You don’t have to create an account; you can just enter your website URL on our homepage and get started A/B testing.

 One on One: Dan Siroker of Optimizely {10:26m}:Play Now|Play in Popup|Download(405)

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Sluggish Small Business Job Creation in October

There was enough research released by various sources this month to make it necessary to do a bit of sifting, instead of having to desperately comb through my various sources to find enough material for this monthly post. That’s a problem I wish I had more often.

Employment scene snapshot

Here’s something you don’t see as often as you might expect: Intuit’sSmall Business Employment Indexand ADP’sNational Employment Reportmore or less agree for the month of October. Fancy that!

In their respective November reports, Intuit says small business employers created 44,000 jobs in October; ADP says they created 43,000 jobs.

We have to assume these are net jobs, since the numbers are not labeled eithernetorgross. In any event, this news qualifies as one of those glass-half-empty-or-half-full deals, since this level of job creation isn’t enough to get the labor market looking healthier. Nonetheless, it’s certainly a lot better than job losses.

In fact, you might say it’s something else to be thankful for.

How’re we doing?

The answer to that question always depends on who you ask, of course, and this month the questionee was the World Bank.

The answer: about the same.

According to the World Bank’s latest annualDoing Businessrelease, Singapore leads the international pack when it comes to ease of doing business for entrepreneurs, with Hong Kong, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States rounding up the top five.

Given our national fetish for being top dog in everything, you might think somebody in Washington would care that we’re playing fifth banana to countries like Singapore and New Zealand. But, alas, no.

Or maybe what I should say is that, if anybody in Washington does care, they are being uncharacteristically quiet about their concern.

And, on everybody’s favorite subject,Paying Taxes, a separate report finds that 40 economies made it easier to pay taxes this year (the United States was not one of them).

On the other hand, next time you are cursing the government while doing your taxes, consider this:“{a}round the world, on average, the case-study company faces a total tax rate (percentage of profit paid out in taxes) of 47.8 percent. The company also spends 282 hours a year to comply with tax laws.”

Tell us something we don’t know

One of the most peculiar things about research findings is that they often“establish” things that those of us in the small business trenches already know.

Readers ofThe Journal Blogfound out earlier this month, for example, that newly released research from Vistaprint uncovered the startling fact that about 75 percent of microbusiness owners say they aren’t interested in growing their businesses beyond micro size. Now, there’s a shocker, huh?

So,here’s another one, courtesy of the SBA Office of Advocacy: Rural small businesses don’t have the same access to affordable broadband service as urban small businesses.

Senator John Kerry (D-MA), former chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, summarized this research well when he said in a press statement that businesses in rural areas“are at a distinct disadvantage compared to businesses in big cities because fewer providers are offering less bandwidth at higher prices.”

The culprit, evidently, is a lack of competition. Of course, if you really want to find out what the deal is there, the smart thing to do would be to examine what the barriers to entry are in the rural broadband field. My hunch is that you’d discover all sorts of anti-competitive collusion between the incumbent telecom and cable giants and the federal government.

But, hey… what do I know?

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Is Small Business Lending Really Ramping Up?

Are banks becoming more willing to lend to small companies? In recent months, most of the major banks have announced intentions to increase small business lending, to hire additional staff to deal with small business loans, and to give small business loan applications they had previously rejected a“second look.”

And in fact, recent statistics bear out that those intentions were followed up with action. In the third quarter of 2010, theWall Street Journalreports,Wells Fargoissued $3.9 billion in small business loans, up from $3.3 billion in Q3 2009;Bank of Americamade $5.7 billion in small business loans, up from $4.1 billion in Q3 2009; and Chase made $2.7 billion in small business loans, up from $1.9 billion in Q3 2009.

But while at first glance these numbers may seem promising, they don’t tell the full story. Bankers acknowledge that most of these loans are going to bigger small businesses—those with between $1 million and $20 million in sales. That means there are plenty of small companies seeking capital and not getting it. According to a study released in October by theFederal Reserve Bank of New York, 59 percent of small businesses had sought financing in the first half of 2010—but more than three-fourths of those got only “some” or “none” of the money they wanted.

If the banks say they’re eager to lend, but entrepreneurs say they can’t get financing, what’s the disconnect? It appears the entrepreneurs who fail to get loans aren’t the “right” kind of entrepreneur. According to the same Federal Reserve Bank study, during the first half of 2010 the businesses that were most likely to get bank loans had a five-year track record, showed positive revenue growth, and had self-financed during the lowest points of the recession.

Bankers cited by theWall Street Journalacknowledge that they are being more selective about companies’ creditworthiness; banks are leery of being burned. Banks are also focusing on industries less affected by the recession, such as health care, while entrepreneurs whose overall industries still hurting from the downturn—such as restaurants—may have trouble getting money even if their businesses are growing.

There may be other factors at work here. Despite the large percentage of entrepreneurs who sought loans in 2010, I think many entrepreneurs are gun-shy about taking on any debt until the economy stabilizes further. With memories of banks calling in loans and pulling lines of credit still fresh in many small business owners’ minds from the early days of the recession, plenty of entrepreneurs are unwilling to put themselves at risk again.

Those who have found ways to get by for the past two years without turning to outside sources may see little reason to do so now. But pulling this economy permanently out of the doldrums will require more than“getting by” –it will require growth and expansion, both of which require access to capital.

What’syourtake on the capital crisis? Is it ending, is it over or is it still affecting your business? I’d love to hear what solutions you’ve found when the banks say no.

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4 Ways Mobile Devices Impact Your Business and Marketing

Mobile has been promoted as the next big thing almost every year for the past 10 years, but today it truly is becomingtheplatform,thetechnology you need to listen to (pun intended). Here are four ways that mobile is impacting your marketing efforts.

1. Mobile devices have a smaller screen. This is painfully obvious, but have you designed for it? Mobile screens are changing e-mail messaging structures. I read an Infusionsoft report that highlighted this and implored customers to pay attention to the mobile screen. Dozens of others have followed suit. What will your customers see on a smaller screen? Is the subject line more important than ever because it is all they might see?

It is frequently stated that e-mail is dead due to mobile and social networks. E-mail is far from dead.  Although stats show that many people are migrating to social networks to communicate, consider the fact that Facebook recently decided to create an e-mail platform. Why? Because people need and want more than short updates and chat to communicate.  If you’re wondering what your e-mail might look like on a mobile device, Web-based service providerEmail on Acidlets you test your e-mail as it will appear on many browsers and mobile devices.

The smaller mobile screen will also impact how a customer sees your website. Many mobile devices don’t allow or use Flash technology, so you have to think about that. It may be worth considering a mobile marketing platform instead. One of the top mobile site builders ismobiSiteGalore. Yes, it would be a pain to maintain two sites, but it could also be more cost effective.

2. Location, location, locationused to be the real estate world’s maxim, but should now be the marketing and small business owner’s maxim.  Location-based offers and services will change how customers engage in almost every way. Customers have the ability to be hyper-connected with their social networks.  You haveonly to look at Foursquare and Gowalla to get a glimpse of the power of location.

3. Use of mobileapps is growing.Whether you know it or not, customers are scanning and comparison shopping, on the spot, in your retail store.  Search and search engine optimization are rapidly changing. On the Droid X I’m testing and will be reviewing here shortly, one of the top apps was a barcode scanner used via the smartphone camera.  Think of how you can tie mobile coupons to your offers.

I worked on a project in Japan years ago; in that country, I could use my cell phone to pay for an in-store purchase.  Japan leads U.S. mobile technology by five to 10 years and possibly Europe and other parts of Asia by one or two years.  Along with your Google Places (or Facebook Places) page, you can add a QR code (like a barcode) to your site, to your retail store window and your e-mails. The viewer or recipient can scan that code with a smartphone and receive a special offer or welcome message.  There are a few easy QR creation sites out there if you want to create a code for your site, e-mail or storefront.

4. Text messaging still matters.Even with the growth of iPhones and Droid-powered smartphones, these are still only a slice of the mobile market. Millions of people are still engaging via text messaging and SMS platforms. Your customer will opt-in to text message (SMS) offers. You don’t have to wait for smartphone usage to completely dominate. Text is a favorite way consumers communicate, but is not used often enough as a way to market. Again, this isn’t spam, but permission-based marketing.

One of the best posts I’ve read about mobile marketing trendscame from one of our contributors, Paul Rosenfeld of Fanminder. Granted, Paul is in the mobile marketing (SMS) space and has some bias, but he paints a fair picture from all I’ve seen and studied about mobile.  One important note from that post:“Gen Yers (18-29) say their phone is the most important device they own.”I would argue that other generations are saying the same thing.

If you want to get just a taste of the many mobile applications for small business, read my19 Mobile Appspost.  What mobile apps are you using, developing, or researching?  Please share them here in the comments.

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Entrepreneurs Think Differently

Entrepreneurs think differently from other people. When technological changes make existing products obsolete, demographic and social changes alter attitudes, and political and regulatory changes adjust the playing field, most people complain. Entrepreneurs come up with solutions.

The Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) introduction of the backscatter scanner and enhanced airport pat downs is a case in point. John Tyner became the latest Internet celebrity for his response to the new security procedures – the “Don’t Touch My Junk” –watch the video. Others opposed to the new rules sought to trigger a pre-Thanksgiving opt out to draw attention to the new measures. And the vast majority of Americans either grumbled their complaints or stoically accepted the latest indignity of air travel in the post 9/11 age.

Not so for entrepreneur Jeff Buskewho saw a business opportunity in the introduction of the backscatter scanner. Buske invented a new kind of underwear. With parts made of tungsten that don’t trigger metal detectors, his product provides privacy to wearers by blocking the explicit images displayed on the new scanner.

The TSA might respond to Buske’s invention by requiring those wearing his underwear to go through enhanced pat downs, but that possibility doesn’t negate what he did. He responded to a market need that was opened up by a change in regulation – a concern about privacy generated by the better images on the TSA’s new machines – by offering a solution.

Academics like myself, study why some people, like Buske, come up with new business ideas in response to these changes, while other people don’t. What we’ve learned is that entrepreneurs think differently from other people. Rather than lamenting the problems created by technological, social, demographic, political and regulatory change, entrepreneurs view them as a good thing – they are the source of business opportunity.

Those who come up with new business ideas in response to these changes also seem to have a background– work or educational experience – that provides them with the necessary prior knowledge to think up a solution to the customer problem. In Buske’s case, his engineering background helped him to come up with the idea of putting tungsten in your underwear – not the first thing most of us thought of when faced with the experience of going through a backscatter scanner.

I don’t know if we will all be sitting around the airport googling on our iPhones in our part-tungsten underwear any time soon. Having the ability to see the potential for a entrepreneurial idea in situations that just gets others irritated doesn’t guarantee business success. But it does show a different way of thinking.

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Holiday Marketing, a Few Favorite Things

In the spirit of Oprah Winfrey’s favorite things and the twelve days of Christmas here’s a list of classic favorites for marketing during the holiday season.  Big business knows that Christmas is a big season for sales.  It’s the chance to get those finances in the black and clear out inventory for the next year.

It is no different for small businesses.  But true to the spirit of the season, the Holidays are a great time to connect on a deeper level with our customers.  You get the chance to leave them with a good feeling and good impression of the soul and the service of your company.  And that’s good for business!  So here’s our list:

CHRISTMAS CARDS

JR Griggs, author of10 Ways to Put Yourself Out of Businesssuggests that you“send out Christmas Cards instead of emails. People will hang a Christmas Card but they will not print and hang an email.”This way your business remains in front of your customer all season long.  As for that email, it’s discarded before the next business day.

HOLIDAY ATMOSPHERE

Create a holiday atmosphere on and off-line.  For brick and mortar companies, consider playing Christmas music and giving away seasonal treats.  It sticks in your customers mind, and that’s the goal, to be the top thought for whatever the service or product that you provide. As for web based companies consider adding a little Christmas tothe site.  You could spruce up your header or banner.  Or create a special Holiday page.  Use it to connect with customers.  Conduct Holiday themed surveys, promote Christmas discounts or any Seasonal newsworthy events on that page.

FUND-RAISING

Yes, we are talking about marketing, so that we can raise our funds.  But in this case, let’s focus on the season and give something away first.  Cait DeStefano, owner ofCait’s Classic Designsuses fundraising to support a cause that she believes in.  This same action also promotes her business.  She says,“It puts my companies name out there for a good cause and brings me in sales and new customers. Right now I’m doing fundraisers for the MS Society and Philabundance. They already have a large marketing campaign in place and add my name to their lists of ways people can help out. I look at it as free marketing.”

BRANDED GIFTS

Provide the giveaway item at the next party or local event, and make sure the gift items are tastefully branded with your company and contact information.  Barbara Wells, SVP, Staples Promotional Products, says that“according to the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), 52% of recipients do business with a company after receiving its promotional item.”I know it works for the cake ladies in my community.  They provide baked goods for our annual October youth event, and receive orders throughout the entire holiday season.

COUPONS

“Coupons are a winning strategy holiday season or not,”says J.W. Arnold ofPRDC, a public relations and marketing company based in Washington, DC. “Times are still tough and while consumers will spend more during the holiday season, they are still very cost conscious and will jump on a coupon offer.”Make sure that it:

1. promotes a product that clients will respond to, and
2. is time sensitive in order to encourage a prompt purchase.

Most of these tips are classic, Christmas marketing tools (some of which can be used all year round).  Consider this your Holiday reminder.  And although we are already in the season, you can implement these quickly.  The best marketing plan is the one that you actually implement.

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