Beyond the content, there are a lot of things I like about Jason Falls’s Social Media Explorer . First, I like his very thin header bar. It gives me lots more “top of the fold” for his site. I like his choice of navigation at the top. (That’s number one.) The Top Right I like the top right area where Jason makes it clear that he’d love to further connect and extend the relationship. The entire sidebar is full of... 

Weekend Favs September Four This content from: Duct Tape Marketing My weekend blog post routine includes posting links to a handful of tools or great content I ran across during the week. I don’t go into depth about the finds, but encourage you check them out if they sound interesting. The photo in the post is a favorite for the week from Flickr. Good stuff I found this week: Paper.li – organizes links shared on Twitter into an easy... 

The other day, someone told me they were a bit down because their score on a social media site was low. I was quick to point out that the number had no bearing on the outside world. It was just something a site had decided about game dynamics within a single social network. It got me thinking about the numbers that matter, from a business perspective, but then even out into other areas. Here were some numbers I thought might matter …  Read More →

The winner of this week’s WinWeb Pitch of the Week competition is Martin Everard, son of Barbara Everard who was regarded as one of the leading botanical artists of the 20th Century. Martin has created a virtual gallery of his mothers’ work after facing difficulties when trying to display the work in a more traditional manner. Martin took a problem, and his passion, and  Read More →

I’ve written a lot in the last few posts about business. That was the goal: to help people better understand some of these tools and their impact on doing business. However, I should be really clear that business isn’t all work. Business, especially human business , can be relationship-minded, can be sustainable, and can even be fun. Sure, transactions have to happen and value has to…  Read More →

Delivery is the New It Thing This content from: Duct Tape Marketing if you’re looking for a way to differentiate your business or products and create a killer competitive advantage you may not have to look any farther than how you delivery of your products and services. Now, delivery is a fabulously flexible term when applied to business, so I use it here to talk about physical deliver of goods as well as digital delivery or information... 

In my last post, how to grow traffic to your blog , I gave you some ideas on how to up your traffic. But if you’re hoping to turn this into a sale, you might want to take some preparations into account. Simple Call to Action If you’re bringing people back to your blog, make sure the thing you most want them to do is …  Read More →

A lot of theories have been circulated for why small businesses aren’t hiring — the bank lending crunch, emotional nervousness about the economy, high taxes, low sales. This week, noted Case Western Reserve University professor Scott Shane weighed in with his theory: It’s all about the residential real-estate collapse . Shane gives several reasons why the real-estate bubble’s pop has paralyzed entrepreneurs. Among them: 1)... 

WiseStamp Brings Your Email Signature to Life This content from: Duct Tape Marketing On the spectrum of really big marketing tactics, the email signature isn’t terribly sexy, but this little touch can say a lot about what you do and how you connect. If you’re like me, you send a lot of email so why not make sure your email signature is working in the background for you. This doesn’t mean you need flashing lights and honking... 

Of all topics, this is one of the perennials. People want more traffic, more attention, more awareness to their blog. It’s fair. We work hard on our blogs. We want more attention and traffic. If your business depends on volume, this is especially important (for instance, if you’re using ads). Getting traffic is a tricky business, and it requires a lot of experimentation. I’ll tell you what’s worked for…  Read More →

While the U.S. federal government remains the largest buyer of goods and services in the world, doing business with the “feds” — particularly for small businesses — can be an unwieldy and regulatory-laden process.  Read More →

While the U.S. federal government remains the largest buyer of goods and services in the world, doing business with the “feds” – particularly for small businesses – can be an unwieldy and regulatory-laden process. A more manageable alternative, however, might be in the state and local government marketplace. State and local government contract opportunities are abundant and, since most states “set-aside” a certain... 

I am a huge fan of Om Malik. I just read his post on Apple’s Ping service , and have a difference of opinion. Om points out that it’s great that Apple is finally adding a social layer to their iTunes store. He goes on to mention that it’s about time, because Amazon has done a great job with this, and has enabled…  Read More →

Bros. According to the Urban Dictionary, they’re young, white alpha males found most commonly in Southern California beach cities, they drive lifted trucks, wear tilted mesh hats and talk primarily about chicks and beer.  Read More →

The e-mail message was alarming and ominous: Thinking the above message must be spam, the folks at The Inn at Mount Snow in West Dover, VT, immediately logged onto their Facebook account, where they were promptly confronted by the following message at the top of their Page: Definitely not spam, and according a statement provided by Facebook to Entrepreneur magazine, it’s intentional. “With millions of Pages on Facebook, we rely on...