What a pleasant surprise to wake up this morning and see that I was able to round out the list of 115 Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses in today’s The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur! 

What tips might you have added to this list? Any good anecdotes? Enjoy!

Bear with me for a minute as I’d like to quote one of my kid’s absolute favorites – Dr. Suess’ Oh, the Places You’ll Go:

“You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.”

In my opinion we are living in an extremely complex (and stressful) period of American history – the recession, new leadership, downfall of “Corporate America” as we once knew it, financial turmoil, etc. Adding to these complexities, here we are communicating in so many different ways including the relatively new social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

It hit me last week as I was laying with my 3-year old in his bed reading him this Dr. Suess favorite…life truly is a great balancing act. In fact, today we are likely balancing our day-to-day tasks and challenges while riding the unicycle (in a proverbial sense).

As a business owner, serial philanthropist, husband and father I often come to the crossroads of this great balancing act each and every day around 4:45 p.m. In fact, I often here this song by The Clash playing in my head everyday at this time – Should I Stay or Should I Go .

I’m very proud to say that I figured out at a very early age in my career, marriage and since beginning fatherhood that we all must maintain a healthy work/life balance…despite everything that surrounds us today.

I’ll be leaving work today at 5:00 p.m. as I try and do everyday. To spend the final waking hours with my two young boys…perhaps reading them a little Dr. Suess as they doze off around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m. I’m good like that.

What do you do to help manage your work/life balance? I’d love to do a follow-up post listing out all of the great ideas and suggestions. Thanks!

I’ve spent a lot of time over the past several months learning about Twitter and more recently answering the slue of questions from those new to the platform or interested learning more about it. As a result, we have recently put together a simple 90-minute crash course called…Twitter 101 (go figure:).

Here is a quick overview of this session – I would love your feedback…are we missing anything, did we focus on the wrong things, etc.?

Social Media Facts

• Social Media are platforms for interaction & relationships, not content and ads (as with traditional “old media”)
• 5 Misconceptions about Social Media:
  1. Another fad
  2. It’s for kids or teens
  3. Used by tech geeks
  4. Not for businesses
  5. A BIG waste of time
• Social networks & blogs = 4^th most popular online activity ahead of email
• 67% of overall global online community now visit these sites
• The biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to “member Community” web sites globally came from the 35-49 yr old age group (+11.3 million)

What is Twitter?

Twitter is “The world’s largest cocktail party!”  With 11 million registered users, Twitter is growing 6X faster than Facebook.

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ “updates” known as tweets. (wikipedia)

 Twitter Crash Course

• Create your Twitter profile
• Followers – see everything you tweet; Following – you see everything they tweet
• Search for other Tweeps – “find people”
• Tweeting:
  1. Begin engaging in conversations once you have some that you’re following
  2. Do tell people what you’re doing, but less than 50% of your tweets
  3. Share useful stories, blog posts, quotes or information – you want them to share with their followers
• @ Replies
• Direct Messages or DM’s
• Retweet or RT

 Time Management

Restricting your time on Twitter is important

• Block off three 15-20 minute blocks of time throughout your day
• When you’re on Twitter – don’t reply to email, answer phone calls etc. FOCUS on Twitter, ENGAGE
• If time allows, spend the evening catching up with your tweeps; especially if your time was cut short during the workday

 Useful Twitter Sources & Sites

www.tinyurl.com – shortens any URL allowing you to include it in your tweets, keeping it within the 140 characters

www.twitpic.com – allows you to share photos on Twitter

www.tweetdeck.com – helps you organize those you’re following into categories & makes it easier to tweet with each.

www.tweetlater.com – just like Google Alerts, it uses “keywords” to help you find others that are tweeting about things you’re interested in, allowing you to follow them.

www.twellow.com – allows you to search by category or industry + same functionality of Twitter Search

www.mrtweet.net – this is your personal networking agent that looks at your existing followers and following and lines you up with others that share similar traits.

As expected, I’ve heard a lot of buzz recently that Twitter is just a “fad”, “a waste of time”, “not for business”, etc. In fact, on Monday here in Chicago I had to laugh at the report from Bob Sirott at NBC 5 who completely misses the mark about the value of Twitter saying it is, “a place to tell other people what you’re doing.”  Such a one way dialog is quite obvious when you look at Bob’s Twitter page .

I’m not at all surprised about Bob’s reaction as this is bound to happen when you see such a surge of stories in the media. To validate this increase in media conversations, I did a quick Google News search on the top social media platforms including Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.  Here’s what I found:

• #1 – 62,000 media mentions of Facebook
• #2 – 44,000 media mentions of Twitter
• #3 – 43,500 media mentions of YouTube
• #4 – 26,000 media mentions of MySpace

In fact, I’ve started doing a series of Twitter 101 sessions with individuals, businesses, organizations, etc. My goal is not to “hook” them in our wonderful world of Twitter…but to educate them about how they might be able to leverage Twitter as a valuable networking tool.

What do you think about Twitter? Is it hear to stay or just a lot of hype? Also, what are some of your best practices around using Twitter? Thanks!

Like most of you, I am hard at work trying to make a good living amidst all of the stress and negativity surrounding each of us every day. If it isn’t the recession, unemployment, financial distress, loss of home, or a slew of other negative things…it is something else. Earlier today, I was slapped with a quick dose of reality that I wanted to share with each of you.

As most of you have probably seen from my Twitter & Facebook profiles, a friend of mine that I went to college with at Drake University passed away yesterday afternoon. To put some context around this story, Shawndra was a 33 year-old mother who has been fighting colon cancer for the past 3 years. Her fight was miraculous as she became a role model for her young daughter, husband, family and the thousands of friends (like me) that have been honored to call her a friend over the years. 

So why in God’s name do I bless you with yet another dose of “bad news”…you might ask?!

It’s really quite simple. As much as we get wrapped up in our daily lives of work, blogging, social media, networking, etc. I wanted to take a minute to share Shawndra’s story with each of you in hopes that you might pass along just this one bit of advice…even though you may not know her…or me for that matter.

Folks, please remember that life has its many turns and bumps and we often get sidetracked by every such obstacle. Do me a HUGE favor and please take a minute tonight to reach out to someone (or many) that means a lot to you and your life. Tell them how much you love them and what they mean to you.

Sunday was Shawndra’s last opportunity to do this with her daughter, husband and family. They shared the love…and I felt it. Hopefully you and those you connect with tonight will feel that same love.

Thanks.

How many times over the past several months have you been asked about social media (i.e., blogging, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc.)? Perhaps your family heard you talking about your Facebook page, a client overheard you mention something about your blog or perhaps a neighbor just learned about YouTube because a friend forwarded them a hilarious video. For whatever reason you have all of a sudden been singled out as an “expert” because you are participating across multiple social media platforms.

I’ve recently had this exact thing happen to me and I typically respond by saying, “I’m certainly not an ‘expert’ but I consider myself and advocate.”  Unless you’re Chris Brogan or a small handful of others that have been playing in this space from the very beginning, you likely aren’t an expert. Plus since this space is evolving every single day, just by nature of participation, we are all learning as we move along.

I would recommend that each of you reading this post strongly consider how you are positioning yourself in this ever changing space. I think there is an amazing opportunity to advocate (specifically to the business world) the basics of social media so folks aren’t jumping into these platforms without a clear understanding of how they work & how they work to your advantage.  Here are 5 speaking points I use with anyone to educate them on the basics of using social media:

1. What is social media? – I like to tell folks that social media are platforms for interaction and relationships, not content or ads (like traditional media). Don’t get me wrong, content is very important but only in the context of adding value to the interactions & relationships;
2. The State of the Social Media Industry – I also like to tell people that if you’re willing to be (1) consistent & (2) transparent, you’ll likely do well in the social media space.  People also love stats, so it is important that they understand the reality of today’s social media landscape – here are some great industry stats from Mashable;
3. Common misconceptions about social media – In order to best relate to someone that hasn’t yet explored social media, it is very important to discuss the most common misconceptions such as: it’s just another online fad, it’s just for teens or tech geeks, it’s not for business or it’s a BIG waste of time;
4. Corporate examples of social media programs – I was recently introduced to the good folks over at Blog Council who work with the largest corporations currently leveraging social media. They have some amazing case studies from companies such as Walmart, Intel, UPS and The Home Depot. I think this answers the question is it right for businesses:);
5. Develop a social media strategy – If at this point they are interested in moving forward, this step is a MUST. Like any good business goals, you must also be able to measure what you are doing across these social media platforms. I like to help them develop a strategy with realistic goals and measurements before they even start experimenting across these platforms.

What do you say to people who ask about social media as a whole or these specific platforms? Do you consider yourself to be an advocate? Personally, anyone who is willing to share their best practices and has proven (measurable) success should be talking to everyone experimenting with social media. If we don’t, this space that we all cherish and appreciate could quickly be flooded by folks that DON’T get it…and that would suck:).

This past holiday season I conducted a pseudo study of all the holiday or Christmas cards I received. Much to my sjogren, I discovered that almost 75% of the cards received hadn’t one bit of personalization on them except for the handwritten address. And probably half of those that weren’t personalized at all didn’t even have a handwritten address…but a printed lable. 

Please don’t get me wrong, we had a nice family photo card made via Shutterfly this year, last and probably the year prior.  But my wife and I usually sit down and sign each card typically writing a little personalized note on each. Besides, for many, this may be our only interaction with them all year!

Unfortunately, I believe we’re in a new era of “Template Personalization.” The dichotomy of the phrase is on purpose as ”template” and “personalization” are as opposite as “night” and “day.” Yet we see examples of this being used across all mediums of communication today. Here are 3 additional examples of “Template Personalization”:

• Blast Emails – We see this one all too much within the business world and in particular within public relations as many PR firms and professionals see a need to blast a pitch and worse yet, a release to hundreds of journalists…hoping for something to stick.
• Evite – I’ve used Evite’s many times and will continue to do so as they’re a great way of managing a party or event. But when you have a small group of friends, family or even coworkers your inviting for an event…why not use print invitations and write a personal invite on each?
• Automatic Direct Messages on Twitter - When you start following someone on Twitter (kind of like your “friends” on Facebook for those of you not using Twitter) there are many services out there that allow for you to send a template response or direct message to those that started following you. I’ve recently started calling attention to these via my Twitter account (here is a link to these tweets).

What are some good (or bad in this situation) examples of “Template Personalization” that you’ve seen? I look forward to adding to this list as I definitely plan on tweeting & posting on this subject often…consider it a pet peeve of mine:)

Earlier this week, I was once again reminded of the reality facing our “traditional media” landscape as 33 of the top daily newspapers sought out bankruptcy protection.

Among those in the “who’s who” list of papers included The Philadelphia Enquirer, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, and Minneapolis Star Tribune. Honestly, I’m not one bit surprised by this news nor should anyone in the media or PR industry be shocked at these recent events.

Late last year the New York Times published a story entitled, “Newspaper Circulation Continues to Decline Rapidly.” The only positive (neutral) news coming out of last year’s study was the following excerpt:

“The exceptions among the nation’s biggest newspapers were USA Today and The Wall Street Journal, two national papers and the two largest in circulation, which were virtually unchanged, at 2.3 million for USA Today and 2 million for The Journal on weekdays. Neither paper publishes on Sundays. Among more than 100 papers with weekday circulation above 100,000, none had more than a fractional increase.”

Do you think it’s a coincidence that USA Today and The Wall Street Journal are also two of the earliest adopters of a strong online presence?  In fact, I remember the exact day (October 17, 2005) when The Wall Street Journal decided to shrink its print edition pushing readers to their website for the most up-to-date news and in-depth stories.  I also remember people complaining that the WSJ was moving towards a tabloid format and it was a risky move.

The reality is without an online presence (or focus), these daily newspapers don’t stand a shot.  In fact, unless these surviving daily newspapers can dive into the local grassroots journalism to differentiate thier papers…they too will be one of the many newspaper casualties.

What are your thoughts about the future of newspapers? Will we be down to a handful by 2012? Anxiously awaiting your thoughts & perspective!

Today I have to share a personal story with you & I ask each of you stop after reading this post and ask yourself, “how can I make a difference…today.”

Like almost half of American families, my parents were divorced and my loving mother took on the burden of raising her two boys by herself ever since I was 3 and my brother 5. She worked two jobs for as long as I could ever remember & her parents (my grandparents) chipped in as much as possible to make sure we were raised with good morals and ethics while she supported us financially. Ultimately, my brother & I had everything any two boys could ever want throughout our childhood – more love than most kids could ever ask for, a stocked fridge, new clothes on our backs and a role model for the ages. My mother didn’t just support our family financially and emotionally, she was also a “serial philanthropist” and was always donating her time and effort to a new cause in the community, for area churches and families in need.

My life suddenly changed my freshman year in college as she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had a tumor removed the size of a volleyball. Doctor’s said she would be fortunate to live another 3 months given the magnitude of the cancer & tumor. Two years later she had another tumor removed the size of a medicine ball (I believe this is in the medical record books…or so we were told by the doctors). Through it all, she was planning the first festival of its kind in my hometown…which ultimately raised several thousand dollars for local charities. The summer after my graduation & almost 3 years after the doctors told her she had 3 months to live, the fight ended at the tender age of 53.

The reason I share this story with you isn’t for sympathy or sadness but to remind you that we are all put on this earth for a mission and purpose. Although we all have our specific passions in life, I believe that EVERY person has a desire to give back & help others in some way, shape or form. My mother faced adversity in the face – being a single parent, working multiple jobs to keep her family together, and constantly giving back to the community all while fighting the illness that ultimately took her life. 

In the spirit of my mother & belief in the power of social media, today I am making it a personal goal to recruit at least 250 people to join a cause that I know will make a huge impact on a number of people’s lives called 12for12K. The goal is quite simple:

• 12 months
• 12 charities
• 1,200 caring people
• $10 per person each month
• $12,000 per charity

We are all looking adversity in the face today with these challenging economic conditions. However, I would ask that each of you dig a little deeper to ask yourself if you could do without just one of the following each month to change someone’s life forever?:

• 2 Starbucks coffees;
• 8 gallons of gas;
• 2 Subway sandwiches;
• 2 Happy Meals from McDonalds;
• 1 ticket to the movies;
• 1 DVD;
• 1 CD;
• Etc……

Please take a minute to think about how you could support 12for12K…and pass on the legacy someone your life who has inspired you to do good for others. Thank you in advance for paying this message forward to others!

I was recently interviewed by PRWeek for a story they ran on February 16 entitled, “Online marketplaces match firms with freelance pros” (subscription required). It made me realize that we are using many different (affordable) tools to help us remain nimble during these “challenging economic times.”

As most of you have probably heard me say, “I refuse to participate in the recession.” But at the same time, we have to be cognizant of the reality we’re facing every day as business owners and professionals. Here is a list of some of the tools, services and outlets that have helped us (1) save money, (2) save time & (3) remain competitive:

1.   Elance (http://www.elance.com) – Outsourcing isn’t just for the Fortune 500 anymore.  In fact, Elance is a wonderful place to connect with experienced freelancers, contractors, virtual assistants and even businesses. You can post a job description with details then review and interview your candidates before you make the decision…all online. The best part is you can tap into a global network of professionals, maximize the competitive environment and get high-end/professional services for a very reasonable cost.  We have used Elance in several capacities.

2.   Brads Deals (http://www.bradsdeals.com) – In today’s economy, you can’t afford not to find the very best deals on everything you purchase.  Brads Deals is a site that takes all the work off your plate and lines you up with the very best coupons, deals and values across 1,000+ retailers. Not only is Brads Deals a client, but we have started purchasing our office supplies, PCs, equipment and other business purchases on the site seeing as much as 60-70% savings.

3.   Base camp & High-rise (http://www.37signals.com/) – We were fortunate enough to find 37signals & their web-based software platforms early on in our business. As a result we are now using Base camp which serves as our intranet but is also an amazing project management tool [about $49/month].  The other piece we utilize is called High-rise which serves as our customer relationship management (CRM) database allowing us to track everyone we interact with (media, clients, prospects, partners, etc.) [About $24/month].

4.   RingCentral (http://www.ringcentral.com/) – RingCentral is a virtual phone system for your business. Bottom line, it allows you to act and function as if you’re a large Fortune 500 company for as little as $9.99/month. We have used RingCentral for about 6 months now as our primary phone #. Then they get a virtual directory to ring any one of our employees…the call is then forwarded to your office, then cell, then home (if you dare) and back to your voicemail if you don’t pick up anywhere. Then they send you an email with your voicemails…which allows you to save without clogging your voicemail.

5.   Social Media – How could I put together a Top 5 list about helping businesses without at least mentioning social media ? Besides the time investment, we can implement our social media strategy (and do) for no cost to our business.

As always, I’m sure there are hundreds of others we could add to the list. What tools is your business using to help during this recession? Please share!