Web Marketing Course for Small Business

It's hard to think about school starting up while classic rock stations still have Alice Cooper's anthem on heavy rotation.

Even if you're not quite ready to shop for back-to-school fashions, it's never too early to register for Web Marketing for Small Business, the four-week, eight-hour course I teach at the University of Southern Maine through their Center for Continuing Education.

If you're a small business owner, marketer, or thinking about starting your own business, you can't go wrong with this course. We'll review:

• Search engine optimization
• Email marketing
• Blogging
• Social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc.)
• E-commerce tips
• Web site analytics and
• How to build a Web site that sells

If you're wondering why your competitors rank higher than you, or how you can leverage your Web site to grow your business, than you should register for Web Marketing for Small Business.

Just remember to bring your teacher an apple.

Rich Brooks
Checking My Seat for Tacks as We Speak

How Do You Raise Your Company's Online Visibility?

Every small business, non-profit and entrepreneur who has a Web site is interested in increasing their online visibility...of reaching more people, of driving more traffic, of landing more business. The question is how?

The latest issue of flyte log, our monthly email newsletter on Web marketing, is entitled SEO & Social Media: A Powerful Combination...if that gives you a clue.

As important as search engine optimization and social media marketing are individually, when combined they offer a powerful combination for any small business or organization.

A well-run search engine marketing campaign will improve your social media results, and likewise, social media can help increase your search engine visibility.

For more information on how to harness the power of a combined SEO and social media campaign, be sure to check out SEO & Social Media: A Powerful Combination.

Rich Brooks
SEO & Social Media for Small Business

Putting Almost No-Cost Web-based Tools to Work for Small Business

Last week I put on a presentation for the Small Business Development Center counselors located here in New England. The event was hosted at the beautiful Mt. Washington Resort in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

(I'm not saying that the place is haunted, but I'm pretty sure I saw a kid going around in circles on his Big Wheel saying "redrum".)

The presentation was entitled Putting Almost No-cost Web-based Tools to Work for Small Business. I talked about one-to-one communication tools like VoIP and Skype, one-to-many communication tools like social media, software to put on teleclasses and Webinars, as well as free alternatives to Microsoft Office and more. I also showed off Basecamp (for project management) and Highrise (for customer relationship management), two apps from 37 Signals that I couldn't live without.

I uploaded the slides to Slideshare (think YouTube for PowerPoint--or in this case Apple's Keynote) and then embedded them here at the flyte blog. Enjoy!

Putting Almost No-cost Web-based Tools to Work for Small Business

Rich Brooks
Slide Share and Share Alike

Small Business Twitter Success Stories: Got One?

I'm putting together an article on how small businesses are using Twitter to grow their business, attract employees, market themselves, find vendors and contractors, make sales...whatever!

There have been a number of success stories that keep on being repeated, so I'm trying to dig a little deeper. If you, or someone you know has a success story about how their small business (no matter how small) leveraged Twitter, tell them to come here and fill out this short form.

I'll be dropping names and including links from the article, so there's something in it for you as well.

What is #FollowFriday (or #ff)? (Best Practices)

#FollowFriday is a meme on Twitter where you recommend to your followers some of the people you follow. It's the Twitter equivalent of a blogroll or a links page on your Web site. And, as the name implies, it happens on Friday.

While it's a great idea, because it introduces you to a bunch of really cool tweeps you may not have discovered otherwise, I've noticed that some people are doing it poorly.

Cramming a tweet full of Twitter handles without any explanation of why you should be following these people is pointless.

The only thing worse is when someone retweets (RT's) someone else's #followfriday list.

I mean, that's just lazy.

If you truly think someone is worth following, then you should explain why that person is worth following:

or

By the way, if you're not following @guidingstars or @nickihicks, I'm recommending that you do. And now you know why.

Want to learn more about Twitter? Check out our How to Use Twitter for Business Webinar on 6/18/2009.

Rich Brooks
aka @therichbrooks

How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed

Lately I've been doing a number of presentations on blogging and social media, and in these presentations I talk about the power of RSS. You can use RSS to stay on top of your industry, your competition, your clients or simply your interests in a time efficient manner.

However, the idea of RSS is confusing to a lot of people, judging by the number of hands that go up during that part of my presentation.

It's a shame that something that has Simple as its middle name should be so complicated.

To that end I put together this short video to show you the benefits of using RSS and how to subscribe to an RSS feed. Enjoy it here or at YouTube: How to Subscribe to an RSS Feed...the Video!

Rich Brooks
Syndicate Me

Update: Completely forgot to include a great RSS video that came before from the good folks over at Common Craft:

Twitter Webinar: How to Use Twitter for Business

There's no doubt that Twitter is a phenomenon: almost every news and sports program seems to have a Twitter account, and celebrities as diverse as Oprah, Shaquille O'Neal and that guy married to Demi Moore all have accounts.

But how do you use Twitter for business? How do you get started? How do you build an audience? How can create a network that will help you grow your business?

Whether you're new to Twitter or have been using it for a while, this Webinar led by Twitter expert addict Rich Brooks will provide you step-by-step instructions on:

• How to setup your Twitter account for maximum impact
• How to find and follow interesting people
• How to build an audience
• How to engage people for networking and marketing opportunities
• How to use 3rd party applications to connect with local people on Twitter, learn what people are talking about in real time, and become a Twitter power user
• How to integrate Twitter into your overall marketing plan

Plus, the last 30 minutes or so will be question and answer.

Date: 6/18/09
Time: 3pm - 4:30 ET
Place: Your desktop! (Do you need directions?)
Cost: Special Low Price! $15 (That's only 16 cents a minute!)

"Space" is limited, so register now!

Rich Brooks
Now I Gotta Go Tweet This

Social Media FTW: Call for Speakers & Presenters

Save the Date! On Wednesday, 9/23/2009, we'll be hosting an all-day, roll-up-your-sleeves social media conference at the University of Southern Maine. (For more on who "we" are, see below.)

If you've been looking to move past the hype and learn how to integrate social media activities into your sales and marketing and to put social media to work for your business, then this is the event for you.

• There will be strategic workshops led by some of the most experienced, well-known social media marketers around, targeting both beginners and advanced users.
• There will be panels that focus on small business, large corporations, non-profits and traditional media.
  
• There will be "social media kiosks" open throughout the conference with volunteers who will help you setup or improve accounts on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others.
• There will be plenty of networking opportunities, both at the event and afterwards.

In the next two weeks we'll be launching the Web site and announcing more details and pricing as well as opportunities for exhibiting and sponsors.

However, right now we're announcing a call for presenters. If you have experience in social media to market your business we're interested in hearing from you.

While we're looking for ideas on what you'd like to speak on, here are some suggested topics to get you started:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• MySpace
• YouTube/video sharing
• Flickr/photo sharing
• Blogging
• Podcasting
• Social Media for small business/large companies/non-profits/traditional media
• Social media and time management
• Social media and ROI (return on investment)

Remember: the purpose of this event is for attendees to go home with specific actions they can take to grow their business, engage their membership, network more effectively, and integrate social media into their sales and marketing activities.

No hype, no pitches, no B.S. If it's not going to help attendees we're not interested. If you would like to exhibit at or sponsor the conference to be able to reach an audience of experienced marketers and business people, please send inquiries to socialmediaftw@gmail.com.

Speakers will receive full access to the conference, promotion at the Web site and access to an affiliate program.

We're accepting submissions through June 19th, 2009.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Who "We" Are:

Social Media FTW is the brain child of Jaica Kinsman (http://twitter.com/jakks), Chrystie Corns (http://twitter.com/ccmaine) and Rich Brooks (http://twitter.com/therichbrooks). Our goal is to get businesses, non-profits and traditional media professionals in Maine and beyond to understand and leverage the power of social media.

Embrace Social Media: A TeleSummit

Would you like intensive, social media training from some of the to experts in the field? Experts like Dan McComb of Biznik, Shama Hyder of Click to Client, Dan Hollings who helped market The Secret, and some random guy named Rich Brooks?

And, would you like that training delivered to you at your own desktop, and/or saved as mp3 recordings so you can listen at your leisure and at your pace?

And, would you like to listen to it live over two days: June 10th and 11th?

Well, then have I got the telesummit for you!

I'll be part of Embrace Social Media: A TeleSummit that is being put on by A Red Bench. My topic is Managing Social Media Without Losing Your Mind, where I'll be sharing ways to better manage your time as you engage in social media activities.

Other topics include Facebook, blogging, LinkedIn, Twitter, SEO, Social Networking and Social Media.

If you'd like to learn more about the telesummit you can do so at Embrace Social Media: A TeleSummit.

Rich Brooks
That Social Media Guy

Did Twitter Just "Facebook" Their New Changes?

Facebook: v. To make changes to your users' experience without asking them and couching it in a "we know what's good for you" attitude.

Twitter recently made changes to their settings that seemingly will hide certain tweets from you. From Twitter's blog:

However, receiving one-sided fragments via replies sent to folks you don't follow in your timeline is undesirable. Today's update removes this undesirable and confusing option.

Now, the exact outcome of this is still a little murky to me as in the following paragraph @biz states:

Despite this update, you'll still see mentions or references linking to people you don't follow.

Ummm...what?

There's already a lot of negative feedback to this changes based on the fact that #fixreplies is the top trending topic on search.twitter.com at the time of this writing.

The fact that the blog post is so murky is probably part of the frustration. For example, does this affect people who are using 3rd party Twitter apps, like TweetDeck?

In any case, the handling fumbling of the issue seems to be part of the problem. Why not make this a feature that we can turn on or off? Why force this change on us and tell us because what we're used to is too confusing for us? Just doesn't make sense.

Here's to hoping that Twitter's listening to their audience.

Rich Brooks
Follow Me on Twitter