Archive for category Small Business Strategy and Decision-Making

Something Wrong At Mashable? Incompetent or Intentional Misleading Articles – Social Media

It seems every time I go to mashable to read something that purports to be research about social media, I found that the article contains reference to some numbers (it’s almost always survey numbers which are virtually useless in assessing value), and then includes one or two sentences implying positive contributions of social media that [...]

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100 Ways to Measure Social Media Is Really ZERO Ways to Measure Social Media – No BS Guide To Twitter/Social Media For Small Business

David Berkowitz is billed as “Senior Director of Emerging Media & Innovation for agency 360i. A frequent speaker and media pundit, he has been published hundreds of times in MediaPost, Ad Age, eMarketer, and elsewhere.” He authored some material entitled 100 Ways to Measure Social Media, and indeed he describes some “metrics” that [...]

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Claims of Brand Protection and Reputation Management On Twitter Completely False – No BS Guide To Twitter For Small Business

One of the “imperatives” the experts say about Twitter and other social media is that all businesses must both monitor and repair their reputations using Twitter (or other online areas). While there are certainly a number of instances where a company has done something really stupid and had it spread rapidly on Twitter, there is [...]

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Jumping Off Bridges A Boon To Businesses (How Social Media Experts BS You)

Fred Radish didn’t realize it then, but out of his despair came a business success. In November, 2008, Radish, CEO of Participles RU, was headed to bankruptcy. His business was failing, his wife left, and his children were all teenagers. Bleakly Radish stood on the Brooklyn Bridge staring into the abyss. He jumped!
Radish woke up [...]

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More Bogus Claims for Social Media and Business “ROI”/Success

I’ve pretty much given up on trying to refute the garbage being passed off as proof that Social Media is valuable to business, or small business. I’m at the point that if you want to spend you time on Social Media, and you can’t find better ways to market and improve your business, you probably [...]

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Social Media and Small Business, the BS continues

My response to a blog post on social media.
Brad, what upsets me about your blog item is the quote from the VP, who talks about wanting to determine how people are finding value in SM. I took a quick look through the study (will look further later), but what I see is pretty much what [...]

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17 “Must Ask” Questions for Planning Successful Projects – Small Business

17 “Must Ask” Questions for Planning Successful Projects
By Adele Sommers
Editor: For more by this author click on the tag Adele Sommers below. In this article Adele tackles a simple way to plan your successful projects. In small business, this is absolutely critical for two reasons. First, owners have a tendency to be people who prefer [...]

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Do You Have Your Own “Business Success Criteria? You Should.

Do You Have Your Own “Business Success Criteria”?
By Adele Sommers
Editor Note: We’re pleased to be able to offer you Adele’s wisdom on a number of subjects. We’ll be carrying more of her articles in future. If you want to read more from her, click here name Adele Sommers, in the tag area below. In this [...]

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Small Business Strategy: Competing On Price Dangers

In my previous post I talked about the problems with focusing on low end, high maintenance customers. There is a matching issue which has to do with competing on the basis of price. This also comes from my unpleasant stay at a Motel 6/Studio 6 chain (twice).
I found out a few interesting things about Studio [...]

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The Power of Understanding Your Core Business – It’s About Survival

The universe sometimes conspires. I spent a good part of today talking with a colleague about how important is is for a small business owner to understand his or her core business, AND to orient all activity towards furthering the core business. Then I realized, I haven’t been following my own dictums. Oh dear, it’s [...]

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Stop Wasting Money! Reduce Spend without Reducing Overall Performance of Your PPC Campaigns

Short Description: Discover 7 key strategies to help reduce your PPC campaign spend without impacting performance.
Long Description: Are you spending money somewhere in your PPC campaign that isn’t yielding good profits for you? These days it’s imperative for marketers to be as efficient as possible with their marketing budgets. This white paper identifies 7 areas [...]

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If you hang around long enough in your small business, good things happen. All That Free PR

Amidst a week from hell, with a raft of technical problems that are affecting access to our network of websites, I was taking a break, and used google to search for my name. Now, let me be clear. I don’t hunt around for a quick ego gratification jolt (you buying that?). Actually, I periodically search [...]

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Real Life Test of Bacal’s Small Business Recession Philosophy Begins #smbiz

It’s rare in life that one gets to test out a general approach or philosophy, but the apparent beginning of the end of the recession looks like it will provide the opportunity.
A number of months ago, I suggested that small business owners who were well prepared for eventualities like the recession should stop attending to [...]

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Small Business Use of Twitter Requires Almost Continuous Investment

Amidst the hype surrounding Twitter, there are many CURRENT realities that are lost. One reason this is the case is that if you look at the people suggesting Twitter and other social networking platforms, you’ll find that pretty much all of them are fanatical, loud, and, as a result, influential on blogs, and other social [...]

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Book Excerpt – Hints on Formal Business Planning

Here’s more hints and tips on small business planning — specifically with respect to putting together a formal business plan.
When possible, use specifics rather than generalities.
Incorporate contingency analysis in your plan to anticipate unforeseen or negative cirucmstances and events (such as “sales 14% ower than expected”). Think about what you will do when things [...]

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