Smallbiztechnology.com: Tech Insight and News for Small Businesses

September 1, 2010

Laura Thomas (Dell) - Social Media Lessons From Dell (Taste of Technology Series Video)

On the occasion of the June 22 Taste of Technology Small Business Series, The Lies of Twitter and Facebook 3 experts in social media gathered to speak about how businesses can leverage the power of social media for their businesses.

Laura P. Thomas, Dell Global Small Business Creative Experience Team
Dan Zarrella, HubSpot Marketing Product Owner and Social Media Scientist
Brent Leary, CRM Essentials

In this next series of posts, we'll bring you their presentations.

Laura P. Thomas, Dell Global Small Business Creative Experience Team

Here's the video and below is the video summary/transcript:

Dell, recently come under fire from the blogosphere because of the alleged poor quality of their customer-service. All the problems they suddenly faced originated from just one person, one “little guy” who created a blog to complain about his negative experiences as a customer and who generated a lot of heat for the company.

His name was Jeff Jarvis and the blog he created in 2005 was called BuzzMachine.

He started a series of posts dedicated to the hardships he had trying to obtain the quality customer-service he thought he had purchased from Dell.

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tags: dell, laura thomas, social media, taste of technology | 0 comments

September 1, 2010

Dan Zarrella (HubSpot) - Stop Forcing and Tricking People Into Buying From You! (Taste of Technology Series Video)

On the occasion of the June 22 Taste of Technology Small Business Series, The Lies of Twitter and Facebook 3 experts in social media gathered to speak about how businesses can leverage the power of social media for their businesses.

Laura P. Thomas, Dell Global Small Business Creative Experience Team
Dan Zarrella, HubSpot Marketing Product Owner and Social Media Scientist
Brent Leary, CRM Essentials

In this next series of posts, we'll bring you their presentations.

Here's the video and below is the video summary/transcript:

(Ramon is opening the event and then Dan starts at abut 8:53 minutes into the video)

Ramon Ray, Editor and Technology Evangelist, Smallbiztechnology.com started the discussion.

Talking about technology these days it is impossible not to mention Social Media, but there are many lies and half-truths circulating about Social Media out there.

The most common false notion is that with Social Media participation success is guaranteed. Everybody uses Social Media, everybody has accounts on FaceBook and Twitter but what is the positive impact of that on the business development strategy of individual companies?

Almost none, Ramon said.

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tags: dan zarrella, hub spot, social media, taste of technology | 0 comments

August 30, 2010

Events, Conferences and Webinars this Fall

Labor Day is almost here and summer's winding down, but there are lots of great upcoming events to help you learn, connect and jump into Fall.

This list of events, conferences and webinars for growing small businesses and entrepreneurs is brought to you every other week by Small Business Trends and Smallbiztechnology.com.

Advanced Facebook for Business
August 31, 2010, 8:00pm EDT, Webinar

Delve deeper into the world of Facebook for business with the Technology Therapy Group: how to create lists to organize your friends, change and customize your news feed, install applications to your page and profile, and create ads for your business.

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tags: conferences, small business events, webinars | 0 comments

August 30, 2010

Stop Scratching The Surface of Twitter. Learn, Go Deep & Boost Profits

Twitter is a VERY powerful tool for your business. To find customers, communicate with the customers you already have and research information about your industry. If you are just "tweeting" and not diving deeper, you're not getting as much out of Twitter as you could be.

One way to do that is to ensure you get the regular updates from Biz Stone, founder of Twitter. Of course this also applies to LinkedIn and Facebook...go deep.

Below is Biz Stone's latest newsletter, with all sorts of new goodies about Tiwtter.

French impressionist Claude Monet said, "I am following Nature without being able to grasp her." Dutch computer scientist Edsger Dijkstra once asked, "Why has elegance found so little following?" More recently, @ladygaga sings "I'm your biggest fan, I'll follow you until you love me." At Twitter, we spend a lot of time thinking about following. In fact, this information network brims with such abundant variety that it helps to have a guide.

We've recently created a selection of tools to help you discover the accounts that are creating the information you want. We've worked with our friends at LinkedIn to create the Tweets app on LinkedIn which is useful for finding and following tweets from your colleagues. We've also published a directory of popular accounts organized by topics of interest.

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tags: facebook, linkedin, social media, twitter | 0 comments

August 30, 2010

Your Employees Are More Mobile. Why Aren't You Giving Them Better Tools?

Kathy Chill, Vice President, Business Development and Product Marketing at Citrix Online tells us that although most professionals are mobile, businesses are NOT providing them with the tools to be more mobile.

The ubiquity of mobile devices in daily life is enabling mobility for a growing number of
employees. With increased business travel and the trend to more flexible workstyles, the mobile workforce can be seen everywhere - in line grabbing lunch or sitting at Starbucks with their eyes glued to their cell phone or laptop. What effect is this having on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) specifically? Are small business workers as mobile as their enterprise counterparts, and how do they stay productive while on the move?

According to a recent survey by Citrix Online, 54 percent of SMB employees have become more mobile in their work habits in the past five years and 41 percent have become at least 50 percent more mobile. However, 60 percent of those surveyed said their current employer does not provide mobile tools and resources to increase productivity. In fact, a full 50 percent of respondents provide their own mobile devices and tools in order to be more productive while out of the office. The results of this survey point to a disconnect between employees and employers and suggest that small business owners are slow to recognize the impact mobility has on company productivity.

Advances in technology have made mobile devices more sophisticated and affordable, and connectivity speeds faster with 3G and 4G networks. There is also a plethora of Software as a Service (SaaS) options that let the mobile workforce do everything in the “cloud,” from storing important documents to business analysis to Web conferencing. Combined with the continuing shift in American work culture toward increased flexibility (e.g., virtual work policies becoming more widespread), it seems as if the rise in employee demand for mobile tools and resources will only increase.

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tags: citrix, mobility | 2 comments

August 30, 2010

PandaForm: Real Easy Forms Creation, Contacts and More

Why is Apple succeeding where others have not had as much success? I'm reading Simon Sinek's book "Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action". He speaks quite a bit on how Apple is a showcase for branding and marketing. Apple did not create the first MP3 player, Creative Labs did. However they created the first MP3 Player - the iPod - that we loved to use. What about the iPhone? Until the iPhone came along we all thought cell phones had to have lots of buttons. Well the iPhone only has one.

I've been trying out PandaForm and it's refreshingly SIMPLE to use. Things just work.

I started using it to create a form for Smallbiztechnology.com and unlike all the scripts and FTPing one would normally have to do to build a form, I created a simple one with (with Captcha capabilities) in a few minutes, with no need to read the user manual.

PandaForm.com is not designing something revolutionary. Forms, contact databases, and payments are not new or complicated. However PandaForm's interface is simple and easy to use.

tags: form, pandaform | 0 comments

August 30, 2010

Bad (Real Bad) Cell Phone Coverage? Get A Mini-Cell Tower (Walt Mossberg - WSJ)

Walt Mossberg reviews mini-cell towers which boost cell phone signals:

If you have lousy cellphone reception in your house, you may have wished you had a cellular tower nearby. Well, now you can buy your own and plant it right inside your home.

Walt Mossberg tries out the AT&T MicroCell, a small gadget that acts as a personal cell phone tower in your home for areas lacking coverage. He says the device has some significant limitations, but more importantly, it raises the question of why you should have to pay to fix a service for which you're already paying.

Verizon, Sprint and AT&T all have started selling gadgets that act as mini-cell towers, broadcasting wireless phone service just like a real cell tower does, though over a much smaller area: a single house.

I've been testing one of these devices, AT&T's $150 MicroCell, in two very different homes—my own house in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., and my son's basement apartment in New York City. I chose AT&T for my tests because its network typically attracts the loudest complaints about bad coverage and dropped calls. (Read the full article here)

tags: cell phone | 0 comments

August 27, 2010

6 Social Media Lessons from IBM's Social Media Guru: What, Who, How and more...

Sandy Carter has spent close to 10 years helping IBM navigate the world of social media. IBM's a HUGE company with a variety of products and services and it's not an easy task. There are a variety of customers to speak to and a variety of products to consider how best to market.

You can learn a lot from her experience.

Marketing enthusiasts worldwide tout the benefits and necessity of social media in business. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, professional communities, blogs…and the list goes on.

Savyy SMBs know creating an online presence will heighten awareness and, ultimately, bring in new business. What’s often ignored, however, is that without a clear plan and direction in place before a company begins using social media, it will surely fail. If you're going to invest in a social media plan, don't dabble. Do it strategically.

After nearly a decade of driving social media programs and offerings within IBM, I’ve learned a few, simple, yet often ignored “Digital Before and After” practices that when followed, show why SMBs should use social media.

What Do You Want To Say?

Take a hard look at your business structure and current communications plan to determine what you want to achieve through social media. Is it a greater awareness of your brand, better communication with your customers, a way to communicate news, or to achieve greater sales leads? Also brainstorm ways one-way communications within
your company—newsletters, e-mail blasts, or annual reports -- can be transitioned into a two-way communication using social media to offer more value and a voice to your stakeholders.

Who Do You Want To Say It To?

Determine who your audience is. White collar executives? Internet-savvy Moms? Millenials? A bevy of social media tools target varied audiences. There are obvious examples… MySpace for the younger generation, and LinkedIn for seasoned
professionals, but there are thousands of others targeted to niche communities, and identifying your audience and where they are communicating online is a crucial step. Our “Getting Started with Social Media” guide on IBM’s web site is a great place to explore this topic further.

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tags: ibm, sandy carter, social media | 0 comments

August 27, 2010

Got A Branch Office? 5 Ways Your Employees Can Feel the Tech Love.

Having a remote or branch office is challenging enough, but when you have to think about managing a "dual" infrastructure - not just the employees in your main office, management, finances and a dozen other things - it's a double (or more) challenge.

Technology can help you ensure your branch office does not turn into a major headache.

Rob Ciampa Vice president of marketing at Marathon Technologies said that there are five things you can do, technically speaking, to ensure that although your remote employees don't have access to a full time IT consultant, that their technology is just as good (or why not better) than their colleagues at the "main office"

TIP #1 - Ensure Fast, Secure Networks

For companies with a small branch office, secure internal (e.g., LANs and VPNs) and external networks are essential to effectively managing business-critical applications from anywhere in the world.

Most internal network hardware is easy to set up and allows users to simply plug in and start using the network. However, you should take the extra time to configure the security features, as it may pay off in the long run. In addition, installing firewall software can help to secure an external network.

This is so important. Although it's a pain, to guests, to not allow them unfettered access to the Internet through your WiFi network, you'll be much more secure.

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tags: branch office, remote office, security | 0 comments