Effective Tips for Entrepreneurs using Twitter

I recently came across an article on how entrepreneurs can use Twitter more effectively and it proved rather insightful. Not only is Twitter a great low budget tool but it is a Web 2.0 technology that is currently very popular. The problem is that many small business owners do not know how to keep their followers active and alert to their offerings. The article titled "8 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Get More Out of Twitter" by Scott Gerber provides tips that several small business owners have found successful. These include:

1) Using Twitter to have genuine interaction with customers and fans while answering their questions. Make sure to be listening, relating, brand conscious, and engaging.

2) Time needs to be limited to less than a half hour per day while only responding to crucial posts.

3) Making one's product embedded into the fans' daily lives.

4) Using an automatic responder to direct “followers” to one's website.

5) Establishing oneself as an expert and providing relevant valuable content. One should post tips, advice and guidance that will assist one's potential customers.

6) The majority of one's tweets should be fun, informational, or personal in nature, while commercial content should be tweeted to a much smaller extent. One should also tweet about interesting links and useful articles.

7) It's always more important to have quality over quantity of followers in regards to social media.

The URL for this site is: http://mashable.com/2011/01/24/twitter-entrepreneur-tips/

Score Southern Nevada Chapter 243

There is indeed a SCORE chapter in Southern Nevada. For the readers who do not know what SCORE is, SCORE is a nonprofit association that helps educate entrepreneurs and the development of small businesses nationwide according to their site found at http://scorelv.org/about-score. The local chapter covers Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Henderson, Mesquite, and Pahrump. SCORE is exceptional for what it provides and it is highly recommended that small business owners either use the SCORE, NSBDC, or the SBA for their services. SCORE offers seminars, workshops, counseling sessions, mentoring, and advisory teams to help educate small business owners. Furthermore, their site provides very useful information on the requirements of opening a business in Nevada and the United Sates.

Groupon's Marketing Strategies

It only seems fitting that I discuss building content for this blog. As I recently completed an assignment for my Web 2.0 course, I discovered the great power that RSS feeds provide for small businesses. Let's take into account Groupon. This site continues to add content every single day, while using RSS feeds, which provides great SEO for the company. Groupon also provides an outlet for businesses to promote their products at an affordable cost considering the publicity. This site has managed to become one of the fastest growing businesses by its ability to not only drive business through constant updates but also its ability to take advantage of new media and Web 2.0 technologies. The site has intertwined itself into Facebook using the "like" feature, the ability to share what you buy, among a few others. It additionally has included itself in Twitter. Small business owners can benefit in numerous ways from Groupon's marketing strategies. 

SEO: Don't Leave your Website Behind

My second blog will cover SEO, what it is, its’ important, and a few effective tips. To begin, SEO stands for search engine optimization. Through successful SEO, websites are easier to find using key words and get ranked higher on search engine results. The issue though, is that most small business websites have poor SEO.

David Gurevich explains often overlooked but vital methods of achieving SEO through his article titled "9 Powerful SEO Tips for your Small Business Website". He covers important strategies regarding keyword usage and where to place them. David Gurevich stresses creating content specific to niche key words. Websites should refrain from having hundreds of keywords or using two titles that repeat the title tag. In fact, using this method won’t work very long and might result in removal from the search index entirely. He further explains that images on websites should be titled to specific key words. I have found that creating content on social bookmarking and networking sites, contributing to RSS, blogging, among others are also great for taking the leading edge at inexpensive forms of SEO and new era marketing.

For further tips, David Gurevich’s article is found at http://smallbizbee.com/index/2009/08/31/9-powerful-seo-tips-for-your-small-business-website/

Introduction

Welcome to my first attempt at blogging. I thought I would begin by introducing myself. After graduating from University of Nevada Las Vegas with a dual degree in Entrepreneurship as well as Marketing I spent nearly two years transitioning from a Wedding Coordinator, to an Assistant Manager at a small outlet store, to finally conducting relationship marketing for a major local casino chain in Las Vegas, NV. These experiences have led me to the decision to begin my first blog with the guidance from my Web 2.0 course. I find it rather suiting to focus my blog on the subject of small business marketing.

This site will serve to guide small business owners and entrepreneurs alike to significantly promote their business while staying within their budgets. Topics of discussion will include but are not limited to social media, website development, search engines, email blasts, affiliations, referrals, and mobile marketing. Participation is greatly encouraged so that we can develop and learn from each other to create the most successful marketing campaigns possible.