Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
With small- and medium-sized business playing such a critical role in the health of our nation’s economy, it is no surprise that there are thousands of blogs aimed at helping people grow or manage their companies. However, with so many blogs written for the entrepreneur or business owner, we felt it important to highlight the ones we believe offer fresh insight or the most value.
In addition, because many of our clients want to reach these influential bloggers, we have also provided counsel and perspectives from industry bloggers surrounding best practices for approaching these writers with story ideas or suggestions.
Below is our list of the 10 best small business blogs:
- Get Your Biz Savvy by Alex Monroe. This is an all-in-one source for entrepreneurs, which offers a different and exciting twist on information such as how to overcome limitations within your business and various interviews with entrepreneurs.
- Seth Godin Typepad by Seth Godin. As a well-known entrepreneur, author, public speaker, and marketing expert, Godin’s blog is ranked in the AdAge Power 150 as the No. 1 marketing blog and offers tons of creative insight on a variety of topics.
- Michael T Hanley. This blog is written by a certified public accountant (CPA) and is phenomenal at helping small businesses focus on things that will improve their company. The information is concrete and helpful.
- Chris Brogan. Brogan offers insight on marketing and social media. He frames advice and commentary within a broader business and professional scope, so that marketers can better understand how strategies developed on behalf of clients and organizations can fit into the totality of a business’ goals and plans.
- Carol Roth. Carol Roth is a business strategist who has worked with hundreds of companies ranging from a single entrepreneur with an idea, to Fortune 500 businesses, on all aspects of business and financial strategy. Her blog offers business advice and often brings in collaborators, including expert participants as part of the blog’s ongoing content.
- Business Insider. Silicon Valley Insider, the flagship blog of Business Insider provides insight surrounding the financial, entertainment, green tech and digital industry verticals. Using a multi-author approach consistent voice and theme, Silicon Alley Insider largely covers the business side of the digital media space.
- Small Biz Trends. Great blog for small business owners and entrepreneurs. This blog offers a variety of information about the small business market and trends affecting small businesses. Podcasts and press releases are also featured on the blog.
- Mashable. Mashable is the world’s largest tech blog focused exclusively on social media news. With more than 25 million monthly page views, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new websites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the Web and offering social media resources and guides.
- 504 Blog by Chris Hurns. Hurn’s mercantile blog is written specifically for owners of small- and mid-sized businesses. He keeps readers’ attention and gives useful information that causes readers to get involved in the discussion and keep checking back again and again. These are blogs by a CEO for other CEOs and executives.
- Best Small Biz Help by Dawn Fotopulus. This blog provides wonderful insight into knowing exactly what small business owners need to know and provides that information in concise video blogs and posts. Her latest video post explains small business bookkeeping.
Best Practices for Reaching These Bloggers
To come up with this list of best practices for working with these bloggers, we asked them for input on the most effective way to approach them with story ideas. Here’s what they said:
- Come up with fun, interesting and relevant story suggestions. Alex Monroe, editor-in-chief of www.GetYourBizSavvy.com suggests taking some time to review his content and reiterates that suggestions for stories should not be a sales pitch for a product or service. This is a total turn off for him.
- Be flexible. Carol Roth of Intercap Merchant Partners, and blog writer of www.CarolRoth.com, explains she likes it when a person “reaches out to her in a focused and flexible manner that is consistent with the message and philosophy of the blog.”
- Be clear on what you want. Roth also mentions that it is important that someone pitching a contributed guest column can clearly articulate what he or she wants. According to Roth, she wants to understand why someone wants to collaborate – this is a must, if they want to be taken seriously.
- Remember bloggers are passionate about their subject matter. They often want a personal connection to the topics they’re writing about and to actually connect with the people who send them e-mails suggesting ideas or reading their material. Consider Louis Rosas-Guyon, president of R-Squared Computing, Inc. He has been blogging for about three years and uses his blog as a public journal where he writes about the issues on his mind.
We hope this list of blogs and tips for working with the bloggers writing about business are helpful to you.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend IDC’s Tech Outlook 2010 conference in Seattle. Produced by analyst firm IDC, the conference series features top IDC analysts sharing their research and perspectives on key technologies, trends and opportunities for 2010.
Geared towards C-level executives, marketing and sales teams, business development directors and product managers, the conference focused on insights and predictions on key IT topics such as cloud computing, business intelligence (BI), analytics and mobile devices. Industry analysts including Frank Gens, Dan Vessett and Bob O’Donnell shared some interesting perspectives surrounding what will sustain and drive each of these technology segments over the next year.
One of the most encouraging messages I took away from the conference, was that regardless of whether or not an economic recovery is around the corner, innovation in IT continues to fuel growth in the technology industry. This will no doubt position organizations within this sector to experience sustainable recovery from the recession before other industry segments.
This message was reinforced by a recent survey conducted by KMPG, an audit, tax and advisory firm. The survey showed that seven in 10 technology executives believe that their industry will recover ahead of the overall U.S. economy. The survey revealed that executives believe that cloud computing and mobile will be key drivers for revenue growth in technology.
Gary Matuszak, partner, global chair and U.S. leader for KPMG’s Information, Communications and Entertainment practice said, “The fact executives see the full recovery stretched into 2012 may mean a slower rebound, but also may indicate a sustainable recovery rather than a possible W–shaped recovery which has been a concern in some markets.” Gary went on to state, “Tech executives continue to grow more confident that the worst is behind the sector and that the engine of innovation which has traditionally led the tech sector growth is still there.”
At a recent Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) conference, Shawn DuBravac, the organization’s chief economist and director of research said, “We’re at this very delicate handoff as we move into Q3 and Q4 from a stimulus economy to one that needs to be driven by the private sector.”
For me, it has always been exciting to work in the technology industry as it is one driven by innovation. Clearly, that innovation is going to be the key to the industry’s success in rebounding from the recession. I believe we are beginning to see signs of this in Seattle with new employment opportunities arising, more start-up companies launching and marketing budgets slightly increasing. It’s a small start, but a trend I think will continue to grow over the next couple of years.
Imagine accessing a new desktop app without having to endure the install process. We are all familiar with the numerous steps we have to take to actually run the apps we want, download the app, run the install, determine what dependencies are required (e.g. .Net, Java, Adobe AIR), install those technologies, resume install and finally access the application.
Communiqué PR client Spoon, a Seattle-based developer of app virtualization and streaming technology, allows developers, publishers and enterprises to deliver desktop apps or downloadable games via the Web and enables consumers, employees, contractors, and partners to access the desktop apps they want with a single click eliminating installs and reducing lengthy download times typically associated with desktop apps.
Until now there hasn’t been a simple solution to access apps via the Web. Many traditional app virtualization and streaming solutions require hardware and significant IT resources to distribute apps which ultimately results in poor user experience and increased latency. The company’s technology is being used by a number of organizations including Autodesk, Novell, the United States Marine Corps and casual game developer Wildfire Studios.
In preparation for the recent launch of Spoon Server, we scheduled and facilitated a number of analyst and media briefings. Over and over during those conversations we heard comments such as “This is amazing,” “It sounds too good to be true,” “What’s the catch?”
The company established a browser sandbox to demonstrate its technology and included a growing number of desktop apps (including games, productivity apps, and tools) on its portal Spoon.net such as Skype, TweetDeck, WinZip and even the popular game Oregon Trail. So if it sounds too good to be true – you can go check it for yourself.
Take a look at recent articles in Net Developer’s Journal, SD Times and ReadWriteWeb about the company’s technology. In the coming weeks we anticipate additional coverage will appear in SearchVirtualDesktop.com, Virtualization Review, Virtual Strategy Magazine, ZDNet and more.
Spoon will be attending Casual Connect Seattle July 20 – 22 and will be meeting with game publishers and developers. If you are interested in meeting with Spoon, please contact us.
Social media contests have the power to drive massive awareness and engagement for an organization. Earlier this year we blogged about the benefits these campaigns can provide both consumer and business-to-business (B2B) companies, as well as a case study about a successful Facebook campaign we launched. While we have experience developing and executing social media contests on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, there are times we have found it makes sense to outsource the platform execution.
Recently we were tasked with creating and executing a Facebook campaign for one of our clients, Earth Class Mail. The company wanted to create viral buzz surrounding its online mail management service and drive potential customers to test drive their service by offering Facebook users an electronic coupon for a free mail scan with a subscription to their service. In addition, users will be entered into a random drawing for a chance to win a one-year business membership to Costco. This particular campaign requires that we ensure participants claim the coupon as well as participate in the company’s test drive demo on its website. In order to execute and manage this efficiently, we turned to Wildfire Interactive to help us build the infrastructure to execute the contest in a cost and resource effective manner.
Wildfire offers simple tools that allow companies and organizations to easily build interactive social media campaigns to meaningfully engage with users on social media platforms. Wildfire Promotion Builder, the company’s flagship product, offers users a wide variety of customizable campaign templates including coupons, quizzes, sweepstakes, video contests, etc. One of the advantages of using Wildfire Promotion Builder is that it allows users to leverage the viral features that social networking sites provide such as friend invites, activity streams and notifications. Many worldwide brands including Pepsi, Sony, AT&T and Universal Studios have used this tool to execute successful viral contests.
One of the best things about Wildfire is that the platform allows you to publish your campaign not only to a Facebook page but also to Twitter and a company’s corporate website, enabling organizations to raise awareness on other social media platforms and encourage participation. The other great thing about Wildfire is that it’s affordable and offers flexible pricing options. Wildfire charges a one-time fee of as little as a $5 plus $0.99 a day – any company, no matter how small, can easily execute a campaign. Of course the more you pay the more you can customize your contest but Wildfire can be tailored to fit any budget.
It’s not just their pricing that makes them a standout; their ease of use for setting up the campaign is extremely attractive. Wildfire’s platform pretty much holds your hand the whole way through setup. The platform provides in-depth details on exactly what you need to include in the campaign and where to include it. For Earth Class Mail, we chose the coupon campaign option and were able to customize everything from the coupon’s fine print to the Web banners without the need to know HTML or Web design.
If you are thinking about launching a social media contest or campaign and are looking for an easy way to customize and execute it, consider checking out “The 9 Best Social Media Tools for Small Businesses.” Finally, please feel free to leave us a comment if you have a perspective on effective social media tools.
In the world of professional services with today’s uncertain economic times, many people cringe at the thought of saying “no”, especially to a client or prospective client. However, there are times when saying no is exactly what needs to be said. So how does one say “no” effectively?
Bud Caddell, strategy director for advertising agency Victors and Spoils, recently published a blog post titled, “Saying no is a powerful service to offer clients,” which I think captures some great points. Bud writes, “If communicated the right way, “no” means that you’re unwilling to build a business around projects that do a disservice to their organization.” The reality is being in a services-oriented business, it can be hard to say no – even when it is the right thing to do for everyone involved.
I have found that instead of simply stating “no,” offering solutions can be more valuable and allow you to hone in on finding a solution that works for all parties. To be effective, it is important to have a shared understanding of the underlying objective so you can be in a position to suggest viable alternatives. Just as when you’re undertaking a successful negotiation, identify the other party’s interests and do not focus simply on pushing your point of view.
As Bruce Patton, cofounder of the Harvard Negotiation Project and coauthor of “Getting to Yes” shared in a side bar in “Strategic Public Relations,” to identify the other party’s interests you can ask, “Why is that important to you?” or “What would be wrong with something like this?” Alternatively you can offer, “If we did something like this, would that be of interest?” or “We can pursue this option or these other options. Which of these would be worth exploring from your point of view?” Once you understand the underlying interest, it is easier to shift to a viable solution without having to say “no.”
The Harvard Business Review published an article earlier this year entitled, “This Year, Say Yes to Saying No,” that offers some additional tips on how to say “no.”
Remember your business may benefit from saying no; however, you can still add value by helping to identify alternative solutions to accomplish the underlying objective.
We’d love to hear from you. Feel free to share your tips or experiences effectively saying “no.”
Did you hear about that car accident on Capitol Hill? What about the construction mess at the intersection of Pike and Pine? The new bakery that just opened around the corner? It’s not likely you’ll hear about what’s going on in your own neighborhood from your local newspaper, favorite TV news channel or radio station. However, more and more people are turning to hyperlocal networks to get dialed into what’s happening in their immediate surroundings. In fact, a recent Pew Research study indicates that 20 percent of all adults (27 percent of all Internet users) use digital tools including Twitter, hyperlocal networks and text to keep informed about community issues such as weather, crime, traffic or events.
A hyperlocal network is defined as something that connects people locally and could include blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc. With the recent rise in social media, neighborhood organizations and community members are turning to these outlets to receive information about activities, events and news impacting their community. The Pew Research study found nearly one in 10 social network users joined an online group focused on community issues in the past 12 months. As communities continue to turn to the online world, so too are companies and organizations looking to reach local audiences.
The increasing popularity of social media coupled with the shifting media landscape and cities spreading further and further out of metro areas, is making it a challenge for local media to produce quality journalism about all the communities a particular city serves. This is where hyperlocal networks can become a powerful medium for bridging the gap. For example, in Seattle we have a number of hyperlocal networks such as Queen Anne View, Fremont Universe and BallardBlog that cover specific neighborhoods. Many residents (and even mainstream local media) are turning to these networks to gather and share relevant information that they simply can’t get from mainstream news sources.
Consider this, A la Mode Pies a new online pie company based in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle recently opened. While mainstream local media were interested in the news, they simply didn’t have the resources to cover the company. However, CHS Capitol Hill Blog, a hyperlocal neighborhood blog, was very interested in the story as there was an onslaught of pie companies opening in the neighborhood causing one to wonder if Capitol Hill was becoming a battleground for Seattle’s pie fans. As a result of the piece in the CHS Capitol Hill Blog, business nearly tripled for this pie company as neighbors wanted to support the new business.
From a PR perspective, the rise of hyperlocal networks is also impacting PR professionals who are looking for the most effective mediums to reach target audiences. Hyperlocal journalists and bloggers are an emerging category of influential media and a group that should not be ignored. In addition to building and fostering relationships with traditional local media, PR professionals should consider developing relationships with hyperlocal bloggers as part of their media relations program.