Don’t Just Talk about Yourself and Your Company

Your intention may be to promote your product and your company, but even the most loyal fans will become turned off by your message if all they hear from you is self-promotion. You need to give your customers a reason to follow you and to remain active subscribers. Share value-added content with your readers that informs or entertains, such as relevant news stories or studies, tips they can use or project ideas. Knowing that content like this is available will make customers more likely to frequent your profile and to engage with your company.

Interact with Fans

Customers know when they are being seen as dollar signs — and they don’t like it. Show that you value your relationship with your customers and make an effort to engage with them. Respond to comments, post polls and encourage discussion on your profile. Ask for their opinions and respond in a thoughtful manner. Hold customer-appreciation promotions such as recognizing birthdays and other special events, highlighting fan profiles or offering random giveaways.

Control Spam

Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of viewing their social-networking profiles as an extension of their mailing list or ad campaign. In so thinking, these business owners are more likely to send out a lot of spam, including repeated mass e-mails or wall posts about events or promotions. Whether these are sent in a private message, posted on your profile or posted on your fans’ profiles, your customers will view them as spam. Remember to establish an opt-in e-mail list for these kinds of notifications so that only customers interested in receiving the information will get it. For all others, a few posts on your own profile will suffice to get the word out.

Also, be cognizant of monitoring spam that others may post on your wall. If you allow readers to share their own events or information on your profile, be sure that this is kept to a reasonable amount. If your profile is full of posts that are advertising a promotion or trying to sell a product or service — whether it’s your own or another’s — your customers will not be likely to remain subscribers to your profile.

Watch Your Posts

The number of posts that you should share in any given day varies, and there is no real formula for how much is too much and how much is too little. However, you should avoid the appearance of posting too often lest customers become annoyed, and you should avoid the appearance of posting too infrequently lest customers become bored. How do you know if your posts are appearing too often or too little? Monitoring interactivity from your customers is a good indication. If you are getting a lot of feedback, you are likely offering just the right amount of posts. If you aren’t getting any feedback, you’re either boring them or annoying them — either by the frequency or the content of your posts.

Remember that You’re a Business

There are plenty of ways for people to interact personally on social-networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Avoid these pitfalls and remember that you are a business promoting your brand, not a person trying to share your personality and opinions or to make friends. Don’t send out invites to games and other apps. Don’t use foul language. Don’t post links to political or religious items (unless that is what your business is about). Always maintain a professional demeanor and leave your personal preferences for your personal profile.

Social media is a powerful marketing platform for small businesses and corporations alike. However, young entrepreneurs must remember these and other important rules of etiquette in order to properly leverage the power of these platforms to attract and not alienate new clients.

Amanda Tradwick is a grant researcher and writer for CollegeGrants.org. She has a Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Delaware, and has recently finished research on college grants for married students and north dakota education grants.

Their printing services range from all kinds of invitations (baby shower, birthdays, parties, weddings, etc), announcements (weddings, graduation, moving), all kinds of baby & kid related items, and holiday gifts. Items like custom printed labels on mint tins are not something you find at every online stationary printer.

Ordering Business Cards

Like I mentioned, the only service I have experience with is ordering a set of business cards, but I am going to guess that the other print services are the same.

I started originally wanting to upload my own design – sounds easy right? Well, no. Unfortunately, TinyPrints does not allow you to upload your own custom design like most other printers. I had a business card design that I created in Adobe Photoshop and had printed at other places but wanted to try it through TinyPrints but could not.

So, than I had to switch directions and pick from one of their premade designs to customize with my information. Once I found a design that I liked, it was very simple to add in my information and quickly complete my order. Now, while you cannot upload a completely custom card design, you can upload different elements to your card such as your own logo. Some of the templates are set up to have a picture of you in which case you can upload a photo and edit it for use on the card. This was good to see and is a nice feature to still be able to personalize the cards more for your business or brand rather than just having a plain text card.

Most online printers offer your standard vertically and horizontally printed business cards. TinyPrints.com has those and many other options too. If you’re looking for something a little more unique then a normal card, check out some of the options they have – folded cards and different size cards.

25 cards for $23.50? Isn’t that a bit expensive?

This simple answer is yes. There are plenty of options when using a printing service online that offer some rock bottom prices and offer all kinds of additional services and features as well. At almost $1 a pop, these little cards are pricey, especially for not being able to upload your own custom design. When you think about the price your paying for the cards though, it is important to consider a couple points.

First, the shipping time is pretty quick. With some of the other online printing services, you have to wait weeks for your cards to just be printed let alone shipped. I ordered from another service a few months ago and the wait was 4 weeks just to have my cards and banner printed.  It appears that the standard shipping service for TinyPrints has the cards arriving in about a week to a week and a half from when you order.

The minimum order quantity is only 10 cards. Then you can order basically in increments of 5. Other sites, your minimum order are usually 100 and can often times be 250 or more. With a higher quantity, they are obviously going to be able to charge a lower price. But when you only need a small run of cards, invitations, or other items, TinyPrints is offering that service and you are going to pay a premium on such small orders.

Finally, the quality of the cards is great. I’ve ordered from 3 other websites and also the printing service at my local Staples store. The cards are always much thinner and sometimes the printing is a lesser quality than how my cards arrived. The card stock for the cards is a nice thickness and corners are not easily bent when in pockets or your wallet.

So while the cards would be expensive, the quality and turnaround time is great so there is a trade off. Either way, my experience with these guys was good and I’d recommend them for small printing runs or definitely for the other services like baby announcements and invitations as their designs looked great.

Have you used TinyPrints.com? Share your experience in the comments!

Disclaimer: TinyPrints.com sponsored the business cards for this review. The opinions in the review are 100% of it’s author.

Even though most students will not earn a sizeable paycheck until they enter the workforce after schooling, there are countless opportunities available while attending school to hone their job skills for when they have diploma in hand.

While in school, students have to be ready to enter the job market; a market that recently has proven harder and harder to crack.

Whether it is working one or more part-time jobs while attending school, doing an internship in your desired field or doing both, use any and all opportunities to market yourself to the outside world, especially as you get closer to graduation.

Among the things you should consider while still in school are:

• Don’t wait to prepare a resume – Just because you are not graduating for another year or longer does not mean you should wait to prepare your resume. It is important to be compiling your resume as you go with internships, part-time jobs relevant to your desire field of work etc. While you are likely not to have a lot of job experience on your resume when first seeking full-time employment after school, highlighting your related experiences while in school is important. Think that internship didn’t mean anything, think again;
• Putting together a professionally-looking Web site – It is not just companies that have Web sites. More and more students are taking to the Internet to compose sites that highlight their accomplishments, abilities and more. Given the technological age that we live in, a well-constructed and informative Web site can give you a step up on other grads when you go to find your first serious job. Use your creativity or bring someone in who is knowledgeable around the Internet to put together a site that will attract the attention of employers.
• Compiling school references – Your professors and those you intern under and/or work part-time under while in school oftentimes know you the best. Be sure to use those where you’ve had positive experiences and have permission from as references. In some cases, you may even be able to attain a letter of recommendation from one or more, thereby allowing you to better stand out among a crowded field of applicants for a job;
• Check the Internet for any negativity involving your name – Whether it was that holiday social at school or the weekend trip with your best college buddies that got a little out of hand, make sure there are no questionable photos floating around the Internet that potential employers could get their hands on. By doing a simple Google search of your name, you can trace any negative comments or images that could lead a possible employer to question whether or not you would be a good hire for them. Also check your social networking accounts like Twitter, Facebook and others to scan for any comments and/or photos that could be thought of as controversial;
• Work with the school’s alumni department – Lastly, don’t be afraid to use the campus resources, including the school’s alumni and job placement departments. While they may fall under different titles on different campuses, most if not all schools have an alumni department and some form of career placement center. These can be of great value to you, even if you’re an underclassmen and not thinking about entering the workforce in the immediate future. Create the relationships early and mold them over time so that you have the ear of such departments for when you truly need them. You may think your school’s alumni department is just for alums, but if an employer has been happy with some recent graduates and is looking to higher, they may turn to your school in search of filling more positions. Use any and all networking options to better enhance your job prospect offerings.

While college students are oftentimes weighted down with their studies and social activities, it is never too early to start thinking about when the time comes to graduate and get a full-time job.

Start early with your preparations, and utilize the Internet, school connections and more to stay one step ahead of the crowd.

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects’ vehicle insurance, writes extensively for business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

While another school year is in session, many graduating seniors are already looking to line up jobs following next spring’s commencement, with some underclassmen doing likewise part-time to help pay for their college costs. Whatever the scenario, it is important that students have their online portfolios polished up.

What to Look Out for

According to a number of different surveys, more and more employers are looking at a student’s social media profile as part of the hiring process, whether it is a full-time job or a part-time position to help them pay bills while still in school.

While most of the danger zones should be self-explanatory, here is a reminder of what to avoid:

• Posting risqué photos on your Facebook or Twitter pages, including too little clothing, drinking etc.;
• Making ill-informed comments about classmates, teachers, other individuals;
• Making racist or sexual comments. Potential employers will frown upon this given that you will likely work with a number of different individuals in your employment;
• Lamenting that fact that you are lazy and do not like working. If you’re looking to get shot down before you even get your foot in the door for an interview, this is one way

Take the Positive Road in Your Profile

While we have highlighted the negative ways a social media profile can hurt you, there are other means by which it can help you.

If you’re a college student about to graduate or just looking for part-time work, use your social media profile to:

• Highlight your education. This can be done by pointing any internships, special projects, travels etc. that would be of value to a potential employer;
• Highlight your interest in a particular employer or employers. This will show companies that you have a high level of interest in working for them, something that they definitely want to know.

With the job market being tight and the national unemployment rate still hovering around 9.1 percent, it behooves students searching for jobs to have as many factors as possible leaning in their favor.

If a student doesn’t want to completely remove a Facebook or Twitter page while job hunting, temporarily take it down, then republish it once the job is in hand. Keep in mind that while you can “lock up” pages, potential employers can find ways to get into the sites via friends and family.

While noting Facebook and Twitter to date, students are advised to create a LinkedIn page in order to come across as more professional to potential employers.

LinkedIn is a great business networking site that can be utilized by students even if they’ve only held part-time jobs and/or internships to date. Many employers will look at such a page as a student being professional, organized and caring about their outward image.

Lastly, it is a good idea when preparing to send out feelers and/or resumes to employers while still in school to “Google” oneself and see what comes up.

In the event there is a negative material floating around the Internet, an individual has the opportunity to do some damage control before it gets in the hands of potential employers.

The best approach to take when posting comments or pictures to a social media site is would you want your mom or dad to see this about you. If the answer is no, what’s it doing there in the first place?

Dave Thomas, who covers among other subjects vehicle insurance writes extensively for www.business.com an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.

If you’re heading into the blogosphere looking to launch your own blog, beware: It’s tough out there. The Internet is saturated with writing — news companies jostling for readers, content mills chasing advertising dollars, average people shouting from their digital soap boxes. In this tide of words, how can you ensure that the readers you’re looking for manage to find your blog? That your content is appreciated and shared?

You can debate all you want about search engine optimization (the process of improving your websites visibility by tailoring it to the criteria of search engines, like Google), but don’t forget the simple truths of good writing. In many ways, Internet blogging is no different than what you learned in English class: have a message that you simply articulate to your audience.

To that end, let’s examine what you can do to improve the quality of your blog posts:

1. Write about what you know.
Your first step to winning an audience is understanding your strengths. Be honest with yourself and try this exercises: Make three columns — “expert,” “understand” and “pass.” Fill in the expert list with every topic you gab about to your friends and family on a regular basis — and don’t forget the college courses where you earned an A. These are your “expert” subjects, the ones you know and know how to fluidly research. Your “understand” column should be filled with subjects that you are confident about and could prepare a presentation about, if with notes. Everything else? It falls in the “pass” column.

2. Distinguish yourself from your competition.
Use your “expert” topics to research the competition. There is no point in starting a blog if the competition is thick and entrenched to the point that you could not poke through with all your effort. In that case, you should break down your “expert” category into smaller pieces. Love classical music? Too broad. Can you specialize in Baroque, Beethoven or bass arias? See if you can specialize without becoming obscure.

3. Read, read, read.
If you truly want to write, the way forward is to read everything you can get your eyeballs on, especially if it’s written by the competition. Look for what you like as much as what you don’t like. Besides keeping you informed about what is out there and what is being produced, being an avid reader will make you keenly aware of the conventions of writing, of what works and what doesn’t work. This knowledge will prove invaluable when it comes to your writing. It’s akin to navigating a maze after watching dozens of others do it before you — you’ll already know the ins and outs.

4. Utilize keywords.
Regardless of which topic you’re writing about, you’ll face those seemingly unavoidable words that repeat. When writing anything other than a blog, these are the words that writers are conscious of and try to avoid to keep their work from feeling uncreative and repetitive. But this principle gets turned on its head when blogging. This is one concession you’ll have to give to SEO over good ol’ fashioned writing because repetitive use of keywords will make you writing easier to find via search engines.

Let’s go back to Beethoven for a moment: If you’re blogging about the composer and want to attract readers entering “Beethoven” into search engines, then you have to be sure to have that keyword (“Beethoven”) in your title, and early on in the body of your writing, and frequently in the body of your writing. The repetition of they keyword helps a search engine understand that your writing is in fact about Beethoven, which will help the search engine guide users looking for Beethoven to your page.

5. Find your voice.
Back to traditional writing tips: Blogs develop a following because the author / blogger has a specific tone and style that comes across consistently, like a popular newspaper columnist. In other words, the blogger has found his voice. Huffington Post claims 36.6 million unique monthly visitors because it has a panel of writers who know their subjects and aren’t shy about giving their opinion. Through writing about what you know, being an active reader and distinguishing yourself from the competition, you should be in a place where you feel comfortable to not only repeat what others are chiming but to offer up your own opinions as well. After all, if you’re not adding anything new to the discourse, why should readers visit your blog?

So, in high school, I bet you never thought the skills you learned making that poster board of your science project would actually help you in promoting your own business a few short years later.  Well, go back to that science fair and let’s look at this from a marketing perspective.  You had to research and create a science project that was unique, creative, and functioned properly in order to earn an “A.”  You had to create the poster describing and showcasing your project.  Then, once the fair came around, you had to repeat whatever the project was in front of judges or teachers, fingers crossed that it would work correctly each time.  Sound familiar?

As much as you may not want to admit it, your science teachers were on to something bigger.  Think of this in terms of your business.  As an entrepreneur, you developed a product or service that you were passionate about and/or thought had potential to become profitable to you.  You had to tweak and adjust this in order to deliver the best possible final product to your customers.  Once this was ready to go to market, you had to convince your potential customers that they needed your offering.  Are you earning an “A” in your real-life business science fair?

To ensure you get your well-deserved “A,” consider exhibiting at a local trade show.  Using the strategy described below, you can launch your business to exciting new levels through a hands-on, personal approach by incorporating effective trade show exhibiting into your business marketing plan.

Showcasing Your “Science Project”

Other marketing methods may describe or talk about your business, but having a trade show exhibit gives your customers the ability to experience and see for themselves the quality of your product.  This is your opportunity to stand out above your competition and reach potential customers that may have overlooked your product in the past.

Creating your “Poster”

To guarantee that your business is memorable to the hundreds or perhaps thousands of attendees, your exhibit must be creative, unique, and consistent.  Reinforce your company’s logo and colors throughout your display, marketing materials, and promotional items.  As is made clear in the articles throughout Dorm Room Biz’s ‘branding’ blog posts, branding and consistent imaging are critical components to a company’s success.

Earning your “A”

To maximize the profitability and ROI from your exhibit investment, you must follow the below guidelines.

• Your exhibit must be innovative, memorable, and represent your company and product.  Don’t skimp on the details, and take advantage of a local exhibit company to ensure your display is the best at the show.
• Give away something with your logo and contact information.  Make sure it’s something useful and won’t just get thrown away in the nearest trash can!
• Collect contact information!  Announce a give-away or contest at your booth, and collect personal information you can use to follow-up with the attendees after the event.
• Talk to each person who passes your exhibit.  Everyone is a potential customer and knows a whole network of potential customers, so be friendly and greet everyone.  Leave them with a positive impression and a good feeling!

Have you had recent experience with trade show exhibiting?  Or do you have questions on how to get started?  We’d be glad to help – just share your question or thoughts in the comments section below.

However, if you believe you should be doing more business, but can’t seem to reach a greater customer base even though you are on Facebook and are employing basic SEO, it may be time to enhance your knowledge of internet marketing strategies. The internet is constantly evolving, and because of this, so is the way that businesses are able to reach their target market. Three great ways to improve your internet marketing efforts to gain the visibility you need to prosper include:

Consistency
Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger are all great platforms to use to reach new audiences. These sites have millions of users which is great when looking for new customers, but they can also provide a challenge for companies wishing to stand out. While a great looking Facebook page and blog can say multitudes about your company, no one will say interested in them if the same information stays on these sites for days or months on end. To maintain relevance and customer interest, online businesses need to post to their blogs and social media site pages at least once a day. Not only will it increase interest, but it will also help raise your business’ website in the search engine results pages.

Multimedia Use
A site should never incorporate only text. Search engines today are programmed to read the code behind videos, and including them on your sites can greatly increase the likelihood that your site will show up on the search engine results pages. Not only can they enhance your visibility via code, but they also afford your site the chance of going viral which can rapidly increase your customer base. Using videos on your site are also a great way to maintain a site visitor’s attention longer which makes them more likely to be converted in to a customer.

Web Metrics
Many online business owners don’t pay attention to who visits their site or which region these customers are coming from, just the number of visitors coming to the site. This can be a big mistake that can cost you an opportunity to close in on a niche market. When pushing your site, always monitor who is visiting your site through web metrics. Web metrics will let you know who is visiting your site the most, allowing you the opportunity to focus in on that demographic and reach them more effectively.

Remember a good social media campaign is executed with long-term goals in mind, but we all have to start somewhere. As an entrepreneur short on time and money, try these short, quick hits to get your hands dirty before you move on to bigger things.

Step 1: Define your goals. Are you interested in driving traffic to your e-commerce site? Or are you interested in generating leads for your professional services business? Or perhaps you’re interested in only building awareness for your organization? Figure all that out and then you’re ready to move to Step 2.

Step 2: Get inside the mind of your customers and prospects. Don’t launch any social media campaign without first thinking through why your customers and prospects are interested in connecting with you. What’s in it for them? How is connecting with you in their best interest? What will they learn by connecting with you?

Step 3: Focus your initial energies on a handful of platforms. Start by putting a company profile on LinkedIn. Then create a Fan Page on Facebook. Follow that by creating a Twitter account. But don’t do any of these things unless you will put some serious effort behind it. Don’t create a Twitter account and ignore it—that’s a waste of everybody’s time.

Step 4: Drive people to your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter channels. Remember, a social media channel is similar to a television channel—it’s your specific connection to your “viewers.” If you’re going to drive people to your channels, make sure they have a reason to go there. Will they be able to get helpful information or a white paper? Will they be able to participate in a sweepstakes or a promotion? Will they be directed to a blog post that helps them in some way?

Step 5: Repeat Step 4. We’re serious. Don’t move on until you’ve repeated Step 4 and spent a good amount of energy driving people to your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter channels.

Step 6: Upload content regularly. Now that you’ve driven an initial batch of people to your newly uploaded channels, you need to continuously update them with new and interesting information. Remember, your goal is to build a long-term relationship with your customers and prospects, so be sure to upload information that answers the “What’s in it for me?” question.

Step 7: Keep your initial channels running while you explore other platforms. Don’t move to other social networking channels until the first batch is running smoothly and you are continuously updating them. After that happens, you can shift gears and start exploring some of the other platforms that help you network. Remember, the key is to build (or rebuild) relationships with people before you start doing the hard sell. But when the relationship is established, you can say, “Did I mention that I sell insurance?” or “Have you seen our new e-commerce site that sells premium coffee?”

Now you’ve planted your business-development seeds, begin the harvest!

Jamie Turner is Chief Content Officer for The 60 Second Marketer, an online magazine providing resources for marketers and entrepreneurs. For 20+ years, he has helped firms like AT+T, Cartoon Network, CNN, Motorola, and Coca-Cola grow sales and revenue through high-impact marketing. A frequent media guest and speaker, he was recently profiled in Advertising and Promotion, a leading marketing text. Reshma Shah, Ph.D., Asst. Professor of Marketing at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, has worked in procurement for IBM, litigation consulting for Price Waterhouse, strategic planning for Unilever, and account management for Leo Burnett.

Adapted from HOW TO MAKE MONEY WITH SOCIAL MEDIA: An Insider’s Guide on Using New and Emerging Media to Grow Your Business by Jamie Turner and Reshma Shah, Ph.D. Copyright 2011. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education, Inc. publishing as FT Press. All rights reserved.

How is your business capturing the excessive use of text messaging in this demographic?

Inflated Posse – Get a group of 4-6 friends and take turns being the baller. Each night choose one guy and designate him as baller for the entire evening. Let him carry around all the money and purchase drinks throughout the night. Also you can hype his swagger by asking questions about his latest trip to Dubai or if he closed that multimillion dollar deal last week in London.

Empty Bank Account On Friday Night – Take out all the money from your bank account (literally, take all your money out) before hitting your first destination. Here’s the trick. Pay for each drink you order but don’t start a tab. This gives you the chance to pull out your extremely huge wad of cash for each drink purchase. Make sure you pull out this cash when ladies are nearby.

Getting A Car You Have no Business Driving – This was the inspiration to the story. Our customer wanted to get a sick Mercedes on the cheap. The secondary lease market (LeaseTrader.com) lets “faux ballers” get a Mercedes or even a Maserati for pennies on the dollar with little financial commitment.

Sharing Payments – Purchase that sweet condo or house with a group of friends (the same friends that serve as your club entourage). You’ll hopefully be making money on your investment and getting immediate satisfaction telling girls you bought the place as your vacation home when you’re not traveling around the world. Just make sure your buddies are staying at their parents’ place for the evening or sleeping in their car.

Fake Passport Locations – Nothing says “faux baller” like your faux passport. When you’re talking about running with the bulls in Spain, catching the Cannes Film Festival, or dropping in on Carnaval in Brazil, pull out your faux passport with proof of being in each country and this should seal the deal.

Thanks to the guys over at LeaseTrader.com for this great guest post submission! No go out there and get crunk with your pimp cup and entourage.