Employment Situation Best at Smallest Businesses

Employment is higher than before the Great Recession at only the smallest businesses, data from the most recent ADP Employment Report shows.

In conjunction with Moody’s Analytics, payroll firm ADP produces a monthly report on employment at private companies of different sizes, using data on 416,000 businesses that use its services. While less accurate than the information provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ADP report is one of the best sources of timely data on employment at Read More

The post Employment Situation Best at Smallest Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Managing Your Small Business Inventory With InFlow Inventory

It’s no easy task for a business to manage inventory. In addition to tracking the actual number of products in inventory, you deal with customer orders, purchase orders and re-ordering stock. This review of inFlow Inventory is for the business owner or executive who is ready to move beyond the spreadsheet.

Manage Inventory with inFlow Inventory

inFlow Inventory comes in three flavors: Free, regular and premium. We’ll focus on the free edition, of course, and it differs from many of Read More

The post Managing Your Small Business Inventory With InFlow Inventory appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Yelp Says It Can Generate $8,000 for Local Businesses

Yelp is trying to help small business owners quantify how much the company’s website is helping them.

The site announced a new feature, the Yelp Revenue Estimation Tool, that acts as a revenue calculator for business owners to determine how much money Yelp customer leads have generated.

The announcement of the new calculator comes on the heels of a study from Boston Consulting Group showing that local businesses had generated $8,000 per year through a free listing on Yelp and $23,000 annually if they were a Yelp advertiser, writes Matt Halprin, Yelp’s Vice President of Revenue and Analytics, in a  post on the company’s official blog.

Of course, these figures should be used as examples and may be slightly exaggerated considering the source. The concept of putting a dollar figure on revenue generated from a particular web visit, however, is certainly interesting and different than trying to determine how much a page view from a particular ad campaign is worth to a company.

The Yelp Revenue Estimation Tool multiplies the number of leads Yelp claims to have sent to a particular business by an average amount that a customer will likely spend.

The study from Boston Consulting Group found that small businesses dedicate little of their advertising budgets to online resources such as Yelp, just 3 percent, according to the study.

In the report, authors Sebastian DiGrande, David Knox, Kate Manfred, and John Rose write:

Most small businesses operate the old-fashioned way, with little recognition of the Internet as a channel or a source of leads. Many small business owners are not even aware that they have an online profile that they could be actively managing on many popular sites.

Yelp believes the Yelp Revenue Estimation Tool will allow business owners to determine which online advertising outlets are giving them the best return on investment and will provide them with statistics that are more meaningful to their bottom lines.

Infusionsoft Announces The Three Ultimate Marketer Finalists

Infusionsoft‘s popular software helps businesses attract customers, automate marketing, close sales and sell online. It aims to be the all-in-one solution for a business’s sales and marketing needs. To quote Ramon Ray, SmallBizTechnology‘s fearless leader, “Using Infusionsoft is more than buying the software but it’s also changing the way you do sales and marketing.”

With that in mind, Infusionsoft holds an Ultimate Marketer Contest, where their customers can submit how they have innovated with the software and seen remarkable results.

Infusionsoft announced this years three finalists and their stories:

Andy Michaels and Gonz Medina of Blue Chip Athletic.

Blue Chip Athletic was started in 2001 by Gonz Medina and Jason Heslop, and is an online custom athletic apparel retailer. Jason met Gonz while coaching wrestling for Blue Valley North High School. This pair came to a meeting of the minds during the summer of 2001 when they discovered a challenge they both shared: getting quality custom apparel for their teams at a reasonable price.

They started out in Jason’s basement with no customers and nothing but a manual screen printing machine. They later found fellow coaches willing to give them a shot. With no marketing budget and no list of contacts, their only hope was to provide an outstanding customer experience and count on word of mouth referrals.

Today, more than ten years later, Blue Chip Athletic has more than 22,000 customers and $4.2 million in annual revenue. This is a great success story of an online store. With their unique lead generation strategy, their lead nurturing process and leveraging sales representatives, their end-to-end use of Infusionsoft is one of the many reasons we chose them as a finalist.

Casey Graham and Michael Lukaszewski of The Rocket Company.

In 2008, Casey Graham started the company out of a passion to reach church leaders worldwide - to train, speak, coach, consult - all to help the church. With barely any money in the bank, a stay-at-home wife and a one year old daughter, he set out on a dream which almost failed. Desperate and in need of a miracle, he clicked on a link that led him to Infusionsoft. Now the company distributes profit sharing with employees and has started a non-profit organization to benefit children in the Dominican Republic.

Casey is a passionate supporter of Infusionsoft - and you’ll soon learn why. After using every feature of Infusionsoft and CustomerHub to deliver personalized content to their audience, they have been able to increase sales and more than quadruple their business in only two years through a variety of lead conversion tactics.

Dustin S. Burleson, D.D.S. of Burleson Orthodontics.  

Dustin Burleson founded Burleson Orthodontics to be the place to straighten your child’s teeth without missing work or school. The business was started with one employee and zero patients in 2006 and has grown to over 7,500 active patients and 35 employees. Through this rapid growth, they have been able to live their vision of supporting the community, changing lives, and advancing the profession of orthodontics. Now Burleson Orthodontics is the largest provider of free orthodontic care to children who desperately need, but are unable to afford orthodontic care, through the Smiles Change Lives and Cleft Palate Foundation.

Burleson’s team utilized the 10 hours of implementation coaching by Infusionsoft and proceeded to spend the next two years intentionally testing each step of their follow-up sequence and client conversion process. After putting his kids to bed, Dustin would kiss his wife goodnight and work seven nights per week from 9 PM to 1 AM. This somewhat extreme effort has led to millions of dollars in revenue and more customers than he ever imagined.

The finalists chosen have some incredible stories. These three finalists will be presenting at Infusioncon, held on of March 27th to the 29th. The Infusioncon attendees will decide who will get the title of Ultimate Marketer out of these three worthy presenters!

Infusioncon has been covered on SmallBizTechnology.com before, as it’s one of the biggest and best marketing conferences around. Check out our 10 reasons for attending the event this year.

Will you be attending Infusioncon Let us know what you’re most looking forward to in the comments!

Infusionsoft Announces The Three Ultimate Marketer Finalists

Infusionsoft‘s popular software helps businesses attract customers, automate marketing, close sales and sell online. It aims to be the all-in-one solution for a business’s sales and marketing needs. To quote Ramon Ray, SmallBizTechnology‘s fearless leader, “Using Infusionsoft is more than buying the software but it’s also changing the way you do sales and marketing.”

With that in mind, Infusionsoft holds an Ultimate Marketer Contest, where their customers can submit how they have innovated with the software and seen remarkable results.

Infusionsoft announced this years three finalists and their stories:

Andy Michaels and Gonz Medina of Blue Chip Athletic.

Blue Chip Athletic was started in 2001 by Gonz Medina and Jason Heslop, and is an online custom athletic apparel retailer. Jason met Gonz while coaching wrestling for Blue Valley North High School. This pair came to a meeting of the minds during the summer of 2001 when they discovered a challenge they both shared: getting quality custom apparel for their teams at a reasonable price.

They started out in Jason’s basement with no customers and nothing but a manual screen printing machine. They later found fellow coaches willing to give them a shot. With no marketing budget and no list of contacts, their only hope was to provide an outstanding customer experience and count on word of mouth referrals.

Today, more than ten years later, Blue Chip Athletic has more than 22,000 customers and $4.2 million in annual revenue. This is a great success story of an online store. With their unique lead generation strategy, their lead nurturing process and leveraging sales representatives, their end-to-end use of Infusionsoft is one of the many reasons we chose them as a finalist.

Casey Graham and Michael Lukaszewski of The Rocket Company.

In 2008, Casey Graham started the company out of a passion to reach church leaders worldwide - to train, speak, coach, consult - all to help the church. With barely any money in the bank, a stay-at-home wife and a one year old daughter, he set out on a dream which almost failed. Desperate and in need of a miracle, he clicked on a link that led him to Infusionsoft. Now the company distributes profit sharing with employees and has started a non-profit organization to benefit children in the Dominican Republic.

Casey is a passionate supporter of Infusionsoft - and you’ll soon learn why. After using every feature of Infusionsoft and CustomerHub to deliver personalized content to their audience, they have been able to increase sales and more than quadruple their business in only two years through a variety of lead conversion tactics.

Dustin S. Burleson, D.D.S. of Burleson Orthodontics.  

Dustin Burleson founded Burleson Orthodontics to be the place to straighten your child’s teeth without missing work or school. The business was started with one employee and zero patients in 2006 and has grown to over 7,500 active patients and 35 employees. Through this rapid growth, they have been able to live their vision of supporting the community, changing lives, and advancing the profession of orthodontics. Now Burleson Orthodontics is the largest provider of free orthodontic care to children who desperately need, but are unable to afford orthodontic care, through the Smiles Change Lives and Cleft Palate Foundation.

Burleson’s team utilized the 10 hours of implementation coaching by Infusionsoft and proceeded to spend the next two years intentionally testing each step of their follow-up sequence and client conversion process. After putting his kids to bed, Dustin would kiss his wife goodnight and work seven nights per week from 9 PM to 1 AM. This somewhat extreme effort has led to millions of dollars in revenue and more customers than he ever imagined.

The finalists chosen have some incredible stories. These three finalists will be presenting at Infusioncon, held on of March 27th to the 29th. The Infusioncon attendees will decide who will get the title of Ultimate Marketer out of these three worthy presenters!

Infusioncon has been covered on SmallBizTechnology.com before, as it’s one of the biggest and best marketing conferences around. Check out our 10 reasons for attending the event this year.

Will you be attending Infusioncon Let us know what you’re most looking forward to in the comments!

Top 10 Sins Of Data Safety (Infographic)

Data safety is as important as ever in the digital age. The ability to save, access, and transfer data electronically certainly makes life easier, but it also makes that data vulnerable to attacks. A simple misstep could mean that valuable and even confidential information may end up in the wrong hands. Recently Symantec released an infographic of the Top 10 Surefire Ways to Lose Your Data. Use the list of Dos and Don’ts to evaluate your business’s data safety shortomings, and immediately take the steps to correct the problems.

Many of the items on the list have to do with not using technology safely. For example, never use a USB drive that you find lying around, as it may contain malware (#10) and make sure to keep your smartphone or tablet safe by using a screen lock (#7). Without it, unauthorized users can gain access to your data and networks. Data safety is also a huge concern when sending data over the internet. Don’t use free unsecured Wi-Fi (for example, at the airport) to send confidential files because you never know who else is lurking on the connection, and if you need to send confidential data to your home or personal email, always encrypt it to keep it safe (#4). Finally, a basic aspect of data safety is always backing up your data right away (#2). In a typical outage, small businesses lose 52 percent productivity and 29 percent revenue because they didn’t back up their data.

Other data safety issues on the Top 10 list are about not playing it safe with strangers, where “strangers” refers not only to unknown people, but also to unknown apps and emails. Announcing when you’re out of the office (#9) is a way of telling cyber criminals that your computer is ready for attack, and becoming friends with people you don’t know on Facebook (#8) is unwise because strangers can spread viruses, spam and attempt other forms of fraud. When it comes to apps, be aware of the risk for malware (#6).  Only get apps from legitimate vendors and always read the fine print before downloading. Finally, make sure to be careful with emails from unknown people or companies (#3). Fake messages may actually be phishing scams, aimed at getting your personal information.

In a class of its own is the #1 mistake in data safety - having unsafe passwords and reusing them for multiple logins. Using a password such as your pet’s name can make your account easy to crack, and you should never use passwords like “password” and “123456” which are the most common unsafe passwords out there. In addition to creating unique passwords that are longer and include numbers and symbols, you should also never write your passwords down. No matter where you keep that piece of paper, it is still too easy for an unauthorized to find and gain access.

As a small business owner you can take steps to securing your electronic information. Start out by taking a good look at your business and figuring out what sort of information you should be protecting. You can then begin implementing safety practices for each thing on your list. Start out by requiring strong passwords and encrypting confidential information. Get everyone on board by training employees about internet safety and what they can do to help. Finally, security threats and solutions change all the time, so make sure you stay up to date on the topic.

By developing good data safety habits for your business, you’ll keep your business information safe and gain peace of mind.

Top 10 Sins Of Data Safety (Infographic)

Data safety is as important as ever in the digital age. The ability to save, access, and transfer data electronically certainly makes life easier, but it also makes that data vulnerable to attacks. A simple misstep could mean that valuable and even confidential information may end up in the wrong hands. Recently Symantec released an infographic of the Top 10 Surefire Ways to Lose Your Data. Use the list of Dos and Don’ts to evaluate your business’s data safety shortomings, and immediately take the steps to correct the problems.

Many of the items on the list have to do with not using technology safely. For example, never use a USB drive that you find lying around, as it may contain malware (#10) and make sure to keep your smartphone or tablet safe by using a screen lock (#7). Without it, unauthorized users can gain access to your data and networks. Data safety is also a huge concern when sending data over the internet. Don’t use free unsecured Wi-Fi (for example, at the airport) to send confidential files because you never know who else is lurking on the connection, and if you need to send confidential data to your home or personal email, always encrypt it to keep it safe (#4). Finally, a basic aspect of data safety is always backing up your data right away (#2). In a typical outage, small businesses lose 52 percent productivity and 29 percent revenue because they didn’t back up their data.

Other data safety issues on the Top 10 list are about not playing it safe with strangers, where “strangers” refers not only to unknown people, but also to unknown apps and emails. Announcing when you’re out of the office (#9) is a way of telling cyber criminals that your computer is ready for attack, and becoming friends with people you don’t know on Facebook (#8) is unwise because strangers can spread viruses, spam and attempt other forms of fraud. When it comes to apps, be aware of the risk for malware (#6).  Only get apps from legitimate vendors and always read the fine print before downloading. Finally, make sure to be careful with emails from unknown people or companies (#3). Fake messages may actually be phishing scams, aimed at getting your personal information.

In a class of its own is the #1 mistake in data safety - having unsafe passwords and reusing them for multiple logins. Using a password such as your pet’s name can make your account easy to crack, and you should never use passwords like “password” and “123456” which are the most common unsafe passwords out there. In addition to creating unique passwords that are longer and include numbers and symbols, you should also never write your passwords down. No matter where you keep that piece of paper, it is still too easy for an unauthorized to find and gain access.

As a small business owner you can take steps to securing your electronic information. Start out by taking a good look at your business and figuring out what sort of information you should be protecting. You can then begin implementing safety practices for each thing on your list. Start out by requiring strong passwords and encrypting confidential information. Get everyone on board by training employees about internet safety and what they can do to help. Finally, security threats and solutions change all the time, so make sure you stay up to date on the topic.

By developing good data safety habits for your business, you’ll keep your business information safe and gain peace of mind.

How to Use Knowledge to Connect to Your Customer

Knowledge is dead. Have you heard this

It’s a meme making the rounds in marketing circles right now. This happens periodically, when advances in technology make accessing information easier, faster and less expensive than it was previously.

It creates a type of existential angst in the industry: What’s the point in showcasing expertise when anyone can be an expert

Any question can be answered with a quick web search. We don’t have to know anything, we can Google it.

Well, I’m here with good news for you. Knowledge isn’t dead. Knowledge isn’t even sick. What knowledge is, however, is fundamentally misunderstood.

Google Happened. Good For You.

Yes, Google happened. The Internet is indeed out there, in all its splendid, schizophrenic glory, cram packed full of data points, which may or may not be factual, that the Internet will return to you when you do a search. But reports of knowledge’s death are entirely premature.

Proof of concept: An Internet search for “How to cure cancer” will return to you as one of the top ten results, a site that promises that the cure can be found in your kitchen cupboardâ€"specifically, baking soda. Does this “knowledge” mean you’re ready to go forward and start healing the sick Probably not.

Knowledge isn’t the accumulation of data points. Knowledge is the ability to judge the quality of the data points you encounter. When you’re knowledgeable about a subject, you possess a frame of reference informed by your experience and education.

Knowledge Applied is Knowledge Alive

As a business owner, your knowledge of your field is greater than your customer’s knowledge is. Demonstrating this is to your advantage. The digital landscape may be flooded with lots of information, but it’s not packed with knowledge. You have to bring that to the table. This concept needs to be at the core of your online marketing strategy.

For example, if you’re a web designer, you know that your clients can go out and search the Internet for how to build a website. They’ll find a lot of information out thereâ€"all kinds of things like HTML, CSS coding, CMS systems, mobile compatibility, responsive design, etc. And it suddenly becomes clear to them that they need help navigating all of this.

Implementing this approach and philosophy means understanding the following:

Full Buy-in

Before you begin executing this type of strategy, you need to be sure that you and your firm truly buy into this strategy. You cannot get caught up in worrying that your competitors will learn from you.

You need to be completely confident in your company and your own depth of knowledge and experience.

Become Detail Oriented

Your online presence should clearly establish that you know the factsâ€"and not any random detail, but the most valuable particulars that are highly relevant to your customers. Tell a story no one else is telling.

This is your chance to demonstrate that you understand who your customers are and what’s important to them.

People Don’t Know What They Don’t Know

Answering your customers’ questions before they even knew they had questions is a very powerful and convincing sales technique. Don’t just give your customers the facts. Give them the facts that matter to them.

For example, an adventure travel company’s most popular blog post isn’t focused on an exotic getaway destination as you might expect. Instead, it’s a guide to traveling internationally with small children. This travel company understood that their customers were parents first and adventurers second.

They took their specialized knowledge about adventure travel with children and put it out there.

Knowledge that applies to your customers’ lives is knowledge that’s alive - alive and building your business.

Knowledge Photo via Shutterstock

Use the Mandiant Redline memory analysis tool for threat assessments

There will always be times when a user clicks on a malicious email attachment and infects his or her system. The question for security pros is what to do when that user reports the incident. Of course, you have to quarantine the malware to stop it from spreading to other users, but you also want to collect information to better understand how the system was compromised. With the Mandiant Redline memory analysis tool, security pros can quickly conduct thorough threat assessments and clarify the severity of such attacks.

In this SearchSecurity.com screencast, Keith Barker, CISSP and trainer for CBT Nuggets, walks through the three simple steps involved with using the Redline tool. First, he shows how to create a collector so Redline knows what information needs to be gathered. Once the collector is created, Keith loads Redline and analyzes the infected system. Finally, he shows how Redline can conveniently rank the discovered threats using Mandiant's Malware Risk Index. And because Redline can be used for memory analysis, hard-to-detect malware such as rootkits can be located with less effort. With the free Redline tool, security pros are no longer left guessing how a system was infected or which threat poses the greatest risk to user security.

About CBT Nuggets
CBT Nuggets is a computer-based technology company specializing in cutting edge online IT training. Founded in 1999 by current CEO Dan Charbonneau, CBT Nuggets provides quick, easy and affordable learning by renowned instructors for individuals, small teams and large organizations. CBT Nuggets also offers a wealth of free videos on a variety of IT topics on the CBT Nuggets YouTube video channel.

About Keith Barker
Keith Barker, CISSP, a trainer for CBT Nuggets, has more than 27 years of IT experience. He is a double CCIE and has been named a Cisco Designated VIP. Keith is also the author of numerous Cisco Press books and articles.

Use the Mandiant Redline memory analysis tool for threat assessments

There will always be times when a user clicks on a malicious email attachment and infects his or her system. The question for security pros is what to do when that user reports the incident. Of course, you have to quarantine the malware to stop it from spreading to other users, but you also want to collect information to better understand how the system was compromised. With the Mandiant Redline memory analysis tool, security pros can quickly conduct thorough threat assessments and clarify the severity of such attacks.

In this SearchSecurity.com screencast, Keith Barker, CISSP and trainer for CBT Nuggets, walks through the three simple steps involved with using the Redline tool. First, he shows how to create a collector so Redline knows what information needs to be gathered. Once the collector is created, Keith loads Redline and analyzes the infected system. Finally, he shows how Redline can conveniently rank the discovered threats using Mandiant's Malware Risk Index. And because Redline can be used for memory analysis, hard-to-detect malware such as rootkits can be located with less effort. With the free Redline tool, security pros are no longer left guessing how a system was infected or which threat poses the greatest risk to user security.

About CBT Nuggets
CBT Nuggets is a computer-based technology company specializing in cutting edge online IT training. Founded in 1999 by current CEO Dan Charbonneau, CBT Nuggets provides quick, easy and affordable learning by renowned instructors for individuals, small teams and large organizations. CBT Nuggets also offers a wealth of free videos on a variety of IT topics on the CBT Nuggets YouTube video channel.

About Keith Barker
Keith Barker, CISSP, a trainer for CBT Nuggets, has more than 27 years of IT experience. He is a double CCIE and has been named a Cisco Designated VIP. Keith is also the author of numerous Cisco Press books and articles.

Want To Know What Ads Work Have A Peek At Your Competitors!

If you’ve ever published advertising on a website or app through an ad network, you probably already know how frustrating it is to gain any revenue. It always seems like everyone else is beating you to it. You always hear about someone else having success with the method. Why don’t you

Here’s the thing: People are already used to ads. TechCrunch did a report a few years ago about a survey that showed that 63 percent of Internet users ignore banner advertising. That’s an impressive number. That’s more than half of your bandwidth, not counting all of the people who are blocking your ads. This figure is higher than the figures for TV and radio advertising. Even more disappointing is the figure for mobile advertising: 86%.

How do we make sure that we don’t fall into that statistic If you hear about a company that’s having success with advertising, your first reaction should be to analyze where it places its ads and what kinds of ads it’s showing. For best results, analyze a company within your industry or niche. If you want someone to do the work for you, use a service such as WhatRunsWhere. Here’s a full video demonstration of what they do for you:

This service basically does everything we just discussed in a streamlined fashion that saves you a lot of time spying over your neighbor’s fence. By compiling data from what works best with others, you can keep up with trends that users follow. Products are constantly changing and the market is getting more competitive. You need to arm yourself with the tools to make sure that you can keep your head above the water by at least catching up to the innovative advertising methods your competitors use.

WhatRunsWhere now also includes mobile app advertising analysis in its services, which makes the deal sweeter. Mobile app advertising is suffering the most. It’s time you get the trickle of revenue you need to better improve your content and services.

Want To Know What Ads Work Have A Peek At Your Competitors!

If you’ve ever published advertising on a website or app through an ad network, you probably already know how frustrating it is to gain any revenue. It always seems like everyone else is beating you to it. You always hear about someone else having success with the method. Why don’t you

Here’s the thing: People are already used to ads. TechCrunch did a report a few years ago about a survey that showed that 63 percent of Internet users ignore banner advertising. That’s an impressive number. That’s more than half of your bandwidth, not counting all of the people who are blocking your ads. This figure is higher than the figures for TV and radio advertising. Even more disappointing is the figure for mobile advertising: 86%.

How do we make sure that we don’t fall into that statistic If you hear about a company that’s having success with advertising, your first reaction should be to analyze where it places its ads and what kinds of ads it’s showing. For best results, analyze a company within your industry or niche. If you want someone to do the work for you, use a service such as WhatRunsWhere. Here’s a full video demonstration of what they do for you:

This service basically does everything we just discussed in a streamlined fashion that saves you a lot of time spying over your neighbor’s fence. By compiling data from what works best with others, you can keep up with trends that users follow. Products are constantly changing and the market is getting more competitive. You need to arm yourself with the tools to make sure that you can keep your head above the water by at least catching up to the innovative advertising methods your competitors use.

WhatRunsWhere now also includes mobile app advertising analysis in its services, which makes the deal sweeter. Mobile app advertising is suffering the most. It’s time you get the trickle of revenue you need to better improve your content and services.

Want To Know What Ads Work Have A Peek At Your Competitors!

If you’ve ever published advertising on a website or app through an ad network, you probably already know how frustrating it is to gain any revenue. It always seems like everyone else is beating you to it. You always hear about someone else having success with the method. Why don’t you

Here’s the thing: People are already used to ads. TechCrunch did a report a few years ago about a survey that showed that 63 percent of Internet users ignore banner advertising. That’s an impressive number. That’s more than half of your bandwidth, not counting all of the people who are blocking your ads. This figure is higher than the figures for TV and radio advertising. Even more disappointing is the figure for mobile advertising: 86%.

How do we make sure that we don’t fall into that statistic If you hear about a company that’s having success with advertising, your first reaction should be to analyze where it places its ads and what kinds of ads it’s showing. For best results, analyze a company within your industry or niche. If you want someone to do the work for you, use a service such as WhatRunsWhere. Here’s a full video demonstration of what they do for you:

This service basically does everything we just discussed in a streamlined fashion that saves you a lot of time spying over your neighbor’s fence. By compiling data from what works best with others, you can keep up with trends that users follow. Products are constantly changing and the market is getting more competitive. You need to arm yourself with the tools to make sure that you can keep your head above the water by at least catching up to the innovative advertising methods your competitors use.

WhatRunsWhere now also includes mobile app advertising analysis in its services, which makes the deal sweeter. Mobile app advertising is suffering the most. It’s time you get the trickle of revenue you need to better improve your content and services.

Java users are mostly running outdated versions, according to Websense

Almost 95 per cent of endpoints running Java and making active requests are currently vulnerable to at least one Java exploit.

According to research by Websense Security Labs, almost 75 per cent of end-users are using a Java Runtime Environment release that is more than six months out of date, while almost two-thirds of users are a year behind and more than 50 per cent are two years behind.

Websense said that it added Java version detection to its advanced classification engine to get real-time telemetry about which versions of Java are actively being used across tens of millions of endpoints. It also found that only about five per cent of active users were using the latest Java Runtime Environment (1.7.17).

In other Java news, Coverity has launched a scanning tool for Java open source projects. Jennifer Johnson, chief marketing officer at Coverity, said: “We have worked with the leading open source projects in the C/C++ community to help them find and fix issues in their software.

“By extending Coverity Scan to now include Java projects, we will be able to help drive even higher levels of software quality and security throughout the open source community.”

Targeted attack tied to Tibet leads to malicious Android app download

A spear-phishing attack that installs a malicious Android application has been detected by Kaspersky Lab.

According to research by Kaspersky Lab experts Costin Raiu, Kurt Baumgartner and Denis Maslennikov, targeted messages were sent to activists and human rights advocates after the email account of a high-profile Tibetan activist was hacked.

The messages that were sent, included an APK attachment, and a malicious program for Android, which downloaded "WUC's Conference.apk" that Kaspersky Lab believed to be deliberately related to the World Uyghur Conference and said the attachment was a letter on behalf of the organisers. The conference took place earlier this month in Geneva.

If a recipient opens the attachment, it displays a letter while malware secretly reports the infection to a command-and-control (C&C) server and sends out data including: contacts (stored both on the phone and the SIM card); call logs; SMS messages; geolocation data; and phone data (phone number, OS version, phone model, SDK version).

Kaspersky Lab said that despite there being hundreds, if not thousands, of targeted attacks against Tibetan and Uyghur supporters, the vast majority of these target Windows machines through Word documents exploiting known vulnerabilities such as CVE-2012-0158, CVE-2010-3333 and CVE-2009-3129.

“In this case, the attackers hacked a Tibetan activist's account and used it to attack Uyghur activists. It indicates perhaps an interesting trend that is exploiting the trust relationships between the two communities,” the researchers said.

“The current attack took advantage of the compromise of a high-profile Tibetan activist. It is perhaps the first in a new wave of argeted attacks aimed at Android users. So far, the attackers relied entirely on social engineering to infect the targets. History has shown us that, in time, these attacks will use zero-day vulnerabilities, exploits or a combination of techniques.”

NYC Event: War Stories - How Entrepreneurs Succeeded In The Face Of Adversity

Hosted by The NYIT School of Management Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Infusionsoft

Date:  April 4, 2013

Time:  6pm - 9pm

Where: New York Institute of Technology, 16 West 61st Street, 11th Floor

 

Every entrepreneur knows that the path to success contains many challenges and that it’s how you face those challenges that determines whether your journey will end or if you’ll continue towards success. War Stories shares how successful entrepreneurs made their journey. 

Attend this event to learn how you can grow your business in challenging times. You’ll hear from keynote speaker Robert Gluck, former Vice President and COO of Smartbalance, who shares his own war stories and what he did to overcome the challenges he faced in business. You’ll also hear from  special guest Mr. Zev Asch, President and CEO of Ledaza, Inc., who will relay his own stories of success and how he overcame the challenges he faced.

Register here or use the registration form below:

About The Speakers

Robert (Bob) Gluck has more than forty years of experience as a financial and operations executive in the consumer packaged goods food industry. During the course of his career, Gluck spent more than twenty-two years with $9 Billion Bestfoods, followed by four years with $15 Billion Unilever North America. While at Bestfoods, Bob served as a member of the Corporate Board Finance Committee, overseeing the investment of funds flow in excess of $100MM annually. He was also responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions, Joint Ventures and Peer Group Performance Reviews. As Corporate VP & Treasurer, Gluck was one of the chief negotiators on the management team that engineered the sale of Bestfoods to Unilever NV/PLC in 2000 for over $24 Billion.

Zev Asch has 30+ years of business experience in Marketing, Sales Management and Business Development. His background covers IT, high tech, medical device and service industries. Zev is also a certified ISO auditor and is trained in Lean Management practices. He has hired, trained and developed direct and indirect sales reps. His accomplishments include achieving 14% growth in 2011 for a medical device manufacturer and distributor; setting up a sales office in Germany covering eight European countries; and taking a company from $3MM to $14MM, leading to an acquisition at $21MM.

Event Hosts

Dr. Joanne Scillitoe, Director Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, NYIT School of Management

Ramon Ray, Regional Director of Development, Infusionsoft and Technology Evangelist, Smallbiztechnology.com

Five Tech Tools for More Effective Online Selling

Online marketing has changed the face of business today. This is especially true of online selling, where businesses can easily reach consumers through social media, online ads, and more. As technology has evolved, busy eCommerce storefront owners are looking for ways to automate the daily tasks associated with running an eCommerce site and, thankfully, many of these tools exist today. Whether your small business sells on Etsy, eBay, CafePress, Amazon, or your own online storefront, these tools can help you save time and generate more sales.

Shopify

Some businesses have complained that eCommerce solutions like Magento require a developer to set up. “It’s important to note that Magento can be slow to load on inexpensive hosting and it is not easy to customize for a novice,” Contempo Space’s Chris Sansone writes.

“In our experience, Shopify.com has been fantastic,” Ayo Omojola of Hipmob says. “Really easy to set up, with an app store so you can easily integrate third party tools.”

AdWords Remarketing

Many businesses rely on Google AdWords to reach large audiences, but that can be pricey for a smaller business. With Google Remarketing, a small business owner can directly target those who have visited their sites before. Remarketing ensures those who have visited your site before will see ads for similar items on your site while surfing around the Internet.

“Most AdWords ads in our space are too expensive for our budget so, on the recommendation of our consultant, we switched to a remarketing campaign,” says Caryn McCoy, owner of eCommerce site EIDBadges.com. “This has had two amazing effects 1) Our cost for AdWords has dropped 16 percent and 2) orders from the remarketing campaign are double what we were getting via the regular AdWords campaigns!”

KickStartCart

Once your eCommerce site is set up, you’ll need a shopping cart to process your orders. Internet marketing expert Tom Antion uses KickStartCart, finding its easy-to-use platform ideal for calculating tax and shipping, real-time processing, and usability for both tangible and downloadable products.

“I use KickStartCart to perform all of this and much more and rely on it daily to bring in sales,” Antion says. “I recommend it to my clients, not only because of the number of tasks it performs, but because of the level of accuracy and efficiency in which it performs them.”

WisePricer

Shai Atanelov of New Edge Design recommends pricing tools that help keep track of the competition’s pricing and also reprice products in bulk based on chosen criteria. “The tools I have experience with include WisePricer and Upstream Commerce, though Wisepricer is much newer and more affordable for small businesses,” Atanelov says.

With WisePricer, businesses can track pricing of competitor websites to know as soon as possible when a competitor is undercutting their prices. No more worrying about customers checking prices and choosing other sites over yours. You’ll know immediately when that competitor’s price drops so you can adjust your price to keep up.

YotPo

Designed to encourage shoppers to review products and services, YotPo is a social media engagement tool that works. Atanelov recommends it to small businesses due to its free but effective interface that helps businesses get the word out about their brand.

“YotPo easily integrates to any shopping cart platform and has proven to increase the number of reviews left on site, as well as increasing conversions by providing trusted reviews,” Atanelov enthuses. YotPo puts the business in control, letting them hide less-than-favorable reviews. E-mail addressees of reviewers are provided to members, allowing them to directly contact customers to resolve any issues.

eCommerce is always evolving, but business owners can attract new customers and keep existing ones happy with these great tools. Best of all, technology tools allow busy entrepreneurs to automated the tasks associated with managing an eCommerce site, freeing up time for them to devote to the many other duties that fall under their responsibility.

NYC Event: War Stories - How Entrepreneurs Succeeded In The Face Of Adversity

Hosted by The NYIT School of Management Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and Infusionsoft

Date:  April 4, 2013

Time:  6pm - 9pm

Where: New York Institute of Technology, 16 West 61st Street, 11th Floor

 

Every entrepreneur knows that the path to success contains many challenges and that it’s how you face those challenges that determines whether your journey will end or if you’ll continue towards success. War Stories shares how successful entrepreneurs made their journey. 

Attend this event to learn how you can grow your business in challenging times. You’ll hear from keynote speaker Robert Gluck, former Vice President and COO of Smartbalance, who shares his own war stories and what he did to overcome the challenges he faced in business. You’ll also hear from  special guest Mr. Zev Asch, President and CEO of Ledaza, Inc., who will relay his own stories of success and how he overcame the challenges he faced.

Register here or use the registration form below:

About The Speakers

Robert (Bob) Gluck has more than forty years of experience as a financial and operations executive in the consumer packaged goods food industry. During the course of his career, Gluck spent more than twenty-two years with $9 Billion Bestfoods, followed by four years with $15 Billion Unilever North America. While at Bestfoods, Bob served as a member of the Corporate Board Finance Committee, overseeing the investment of funds flow in excess of $100MM annually. He was also responsible for Mergers and Acquisitions, Joint Ventures and Peer Group Performance Reviews. As Corporate VP & Treasurer, Gluck was one of the chief negotiators on the management team that engineered the sale of Bestfoods to Unilever NV/PLC in 2000 for over $24 Billion.

Zev Asch has 30+ years of business experience in Marketing, Sales Management and Business Development. His background covers IT, high tech, medical device and service industries. Zev is also a certified ISO auditor and is trained in Lean Management practices. He has hired, trained and developed direct and indirect sales reps. His accomplishments include achieving 14% growth in 2011 for a medical device manufacturer and distributor; setting up a sales office in Germany covering eight European countries; and taking a company from $3MM to $14MM, leading to an acquisition at $21MM.

Event Hosts

Dr. Joanne Scillitoe, Director Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, NYIT School of Management

Ramon Ray, Regional Director of Development, Infusionsoft and Technology Evangelist, Smallbiztechnology.com

Infographic: The Most Tried and Failed Small Businesses

If you are running a small business and have been around for any length of time, give yourself a pat on the back. I’ve been running my small business for 16 years now and believe me, I’m thankful each and every day. I especially feel that way after coming across this small business infographic on some of the most tried and failed small businesses.

Did you know that recent studies have shown that 50 percent of small businesses will fail Read More

The post Infographic: The Most Tried and Failed Small Businesses appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Five Tech Tools for More Effective Online Selling

Online marketing has changed the face of business today. This is especially true of online selling, where businesses can easily reach consumers through social media, online ads, and more. As technology has evolved, busy eCommerce storefront owners are looking for ways to automate the daily tasks associated with running an eCommerce site and, thankfully, many of these tools exist today. Whether your small business sells on Etsy, eBay, CafePress, Amazon, or your own online storefront, these tools can help you save time and generate more sales.

Shopify

Some businesses have complained that eCommerce solutions like Magento require a developer to set up. “It’s important to note that Magento can be slow to load on inexpensive hosting and it is not easy to customize for a novice,” Contempo Space’s Chris Sansone writes.

“In our experience, Shopify.com has been fantastic,” Ayo Omojola of Hipmob says. “Really easy to set up, with an app store so you can easily integrate third party tools.”

AdWords Remarketing

Many businesses rely on Google AdWords to reach large audiences, but that can be pricey for a smaller business. With Google Remarketing, a small business owner can directly target those who have visited their sites before. Remarketing ensures those who have visited your site before will see ads for similar items on your site while surfing around the Internet.

“Most AdWords ads in our space are too expensive for our budget so, on the recommendation of our consultant, we switched to a remarketing campaign,” says Caryn McCoy, owner of eCommerce site EIDBadges.com. “This has had two amazing effects 1) Our cost for AdWords has dropped 16 percent and 2) orders from the remarketing campaign are double what we were getting via the regular AdWords campaigns!”

KickStartCart

Once your eCommerce site is set up, you’ll need a shopping cart to process your orders. Internet marketing expert Tom Antion uses KickStartCart, finding its easy-to-use platform ideal for calculating tax and shipping, real-time processing, and usability for both tangible and downloadable products.

“I use KickStartCart to perform all of this and much more and rely on it daily to bring in sales,” Antion says. “I recommend it to my clients, not only because of the number of tasks it performs, but because of the level of accuracy and efficiency in which it performs them.”

WisePricer

Shai Atanelov of New Edge Design recommends pricing tools that help keep track of the competition’s pricing and also reprice products in bulk based on chosen criteria. “The tools I have experience with include WisePricer and Upstream Commerce, though Wisepricer is much newer and more affordable for small businesses,” Atanelov says.

With WisePricer, businesses can track pricing of competitor websites to know as soon as possible when a competitor is undercutting their prices. No more worrying about customers checking prices and choosing other sites over yours. You’ll know immediately when that competitor’s price drops so you can adjust your price to keep up.

YotPo

Designed to encourage shoppers to review products and services, YotPo is a social media engagement tool that works. Atanelov recommends it to small businesses due to its free but effective interface that helps businesses get the word out about their brand.

“YotPo easily integrates to any shopping cart platform and has proven to increase the number of reviews left on site, as well as increasing conversions by providing trusted reviews,” Atanelov enthuses. YotPo puts the business in control, letting them hide less-than-favorable reviews. E-mail addressees of reviewers are provided to members, allowing them to directly contact customers to resolve any issues.

eCommerce is always evolving, but business owners can attract new customers and keep existing ones happy with these great tools. Best of all, technology tools allow busy entrepreneurs to automated the tasks associated with managing an eCommerce site, freeing up time for them to devote to the many other duties that fall under their responsibility.

3 Ways To Make Your Own Luck And Give Your Business The Best Chance For Success

What role does luck play in your business Did you spend St. Patrick’s Day putting up four-leaf clovers from the yard and chasing rainbows

A new survey from online small business community and directory, Manta, had nearly 4 in 10 respondents say luck has not played any role in their business success - and ranked it last behind hard-work, networking, good hiring decisions, timing and the economy as the factor that has had the biggest impact on their company.

You definitely can’t rely on luck to make your business a success. A poorly run business won’t be successful no matter how much luck gets thrown your way. But luck has to play a part, however small. That you were born in the right place, in the right era to make your business work is luck.

But I can’t very well write a post with tips on how to be lucky, so let’s look at the tangible, concrete things you can do for you business, as mentioned by Manta’s survey respondents.

And don’t forget to check out Ramon Ray’s 9 rules for business success.

How do you make your own luck What do you wish you had known when you started your business Let us know in the comments below!

3 Ways To Make Your Own Luck And Give Your Business The Best Chance For Success

What role does luck play in your business Did you spend St. Patrick’s Day putting up four-leaf clovers from the yard and chasing rainbows

A new survey from online small business community and directory, Manta, had nearly 4 in 10 respondents say luck has not played any role in their business success - and ranked it last behind hard-work, networking, good hiring decisions, timing and the economy as the factor that has had the biggest impact on their company.

You definitely can’t rely on luck to make your business a success. A poorly run business won’t be successful no matter how much luck gets thrown your way. But luck has to play a part, however small. That you were born in the right place, in the right era to make your business work is luck.

But I can’t very well write a post with tips on how to be lucky, so let’s look at the tangible, concrete things you can do for you business, as mentioned by Manta’s survey respondents.

And don’t forget to check out Ramon Ray’s 9 rules for business success.

How do you make your own luck What do you wish you had known when you started your business Let us know in the comments below!

Go Remote: 10 Ways to Free Up Your Business With a Tablet

Get away from your desk. It may be ruining your creativity and productivity. If you think the iPad, BlackBerry Playbook, Google Nexus 10, or Amazon Kindle Fire â€" to name just a few brands â€" are just for entertainment or reading, think again. Tablets are quickly changing our work habits and the way our businesses operate.

We tapped into the mobility expertise of Plantronics marketing director, Judi Hembrough, to get her take on how small businesses are using tablets today. Below are 10 business ways lightweight tablets can untether you and your employees from your desks, help you get out among customers, and get more done in your business:

1. Bring Your Point of Sale System to the Customer

Restaurants are placing tablets in the hands of their waitstaff, or even more revolutionary, placing the device right on the table to allow the customer to browse and send an order directly to the kitchen. You see more and more tablets at trade shows, farmers markets, and festivals where the small business owner just adds a Square, Pay Anywhere or Intuit credit card reader and can accept payments on the go.  Don’t think you need to bring the customer to the cash register or order entry system - flip that around because with a tablet you bring it to your customer wherever he or she is.

2. Use Your Tablet as a Phone

I don’t mean you should hold that thing up to your ear; you’ll look quite strange. However, if you load it with Skype or Google Voice, and add a Bluetooth headset, you can easily use a tablet as an internet phone to make and receive calls.

3. Conduct Training with Multimedia

If you have to train your team, or yourself, why not sit down with a tablet where you can listen and watch You could subscribe to a service like Lynda.com and arrange technical training for your entire team using their mobile and tablet apps. Or you can simply set up your own hand-picked curriculum on a corporate intranet.

4. Use it for Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Of course, you can view and retrieve customer information from your Salesforce or Sage data, while in the field, but you can also use service like Cardmunch or Bump to put data into your tablet.

5. Create a Digital Portfolio

This is quite possibly one of the highest ROI uses of tablets for business - showing your presentation to a prospective  client on an iPad or other tablet.  It helps get sales. From photographers to real estate agents, tablets are useful for showing your digital portfolio. Plantronics marketing director, Judi Hembrough, recommends that you connect the device to a larger screen (even a TV screen) using HDMI for even better viewing. A wide number of apps can help you create a great presentation on a tablet.

6. Manage Documents

As you are noticing, a tablet is just as good as a desktop or laptop in many cases. One of the reasons for growth of the cloud is because we want access to our documents from anywhere and to any device. Keep your documents in the cloud and access them with a tablet, for true mobility.

7. Create and Edit on the Go

Document management for many people is simply an issue of accessing a static document. But for true mobility, we also want the ability to create and edit documents even when out of the office. This need to work from any device, at any time and place, has helped fuel the spectacular growth of Evernote and its competitors. I just read that the very popular Dolphin mobile browser now supports increased Evernote functionality making it easier to share websites from a tablet or phone.

When it comes to editing documents, today editing brings to mind entirely new capabilities â€" and you don’t need to be in your office, sitting next to a printer or a fax machine to use them.  For example, you can use a tablet for receiving contracts, and then use an electronic signature platform to sign, save and return the signed documents.  Services like HelloSign and Adobe’s EchoSign are very helpful for managing the signing process from a tablet. Another out-of-the-box way to “edit” and finalize documents is by creating a web form with Wufoo and then using a handy stylus like Pogo Connect to fill out the form digitally.

8. Conduct Inventory

The inventory process is always tedious, especially for those without a more sophisticated barcode system, and it usually means keeping a tally on paper. But a tablet can make the inventory tracking process a lot easier - you can use one of the many apps out there, such as Inventory Tracker, or inFlow Inventory via the web. Or you could go as far as creating your own database with the Filemaker platform for iOS. No more clipboards and taking notes in pencil.

9. Keep Track of Time

Employees can manage time tracking with tools like Toggl, Timr, or TSheets. Of course, they all have mobile apps that work on any tablet.  This is especially important for businesses that bill based on hourly work, and makes sure time doesn’t slip through the cracks and is invoiced, especially when work is performed in the field, while on business trips or when employees are working from home.

10. Get Paid Faster

Okay, now we’re down to the serious part of tablets: You can issue estimates, send invoices, and scan your receipts. With FreshBooks, or Outright, or QuickBooks, you can manage your accounting right from the tablet.

If you think that shiny new Nexus 10, or iPad3, or Kindle is just for entertainment, think twice. As this list suggests, there are more apps and mobile tools available to small businesses than ever, at a price point from free to low cost, to make running a business easier. Oh, and don’t forget to get a good wireless keyboard.

How are tablets changing the way your business operates

Tablet Photo via Shutterstock

Network security study reveals 26,000 undetected malware samples

A two-month study has identified 26,000 unique malware samples that were completely undetected by existing anti-virus solutions.

The study by Palo Alto Networks found that web-based malware stays hidden for an average of 20 days before being detected, as opposed to five days for email-based malware, while 94 per cent of the undetected malware was delivered via web browsing or web proxies.

According to the company report, malware samples were collected in live enterprise networks from its WildFire malware protection. As part of its normal analysis, it tested malware samples collected by WildFire against fully updated anti-virus products from six industry-leading enterprise anti-virus vendors.

The report said: “The intent is not to point out that some malware gets by traditional anti-virus, but rather to provide actionable insight into the problem - what malware strategies are the most successful, why, and how can security teams respond.”

Wade Williamson, senior research analyst at Palo Alto Networks, said: “It's not enough to simply detect malware out there that is evading traditional security. Enterprises should come to expect more comprehensive prevention from their vendors. That's what the Modern Malware Review is signalling - analysing undetected malware in real networks has enabled us to arm IT security teams with actionable information for reducing their exposure against threats they might have otherwise missed.”

In its recommendations, it said that the data shows that web-based applications are significantly more successful at both avoiding traditional anti-virus and remaining unknown for extended periods of time, and advised security teams to expect and be prepared to enforce at the network by not only incorporating anti-malware technologies in new places, but also to do it at new speeds.

It also recommended expecting unknowns, and add the ability to definitively identify malware; do real-time detection and blocking whenever possible; and enforce user and application-based controls on applications that can transfer files.

“Our analysis shows that of the more than 26,000 malware samples analysed, 70 per cent retained distinct identifiers or behaviours that can be useful for real-time control and blocking,” the report said.

5 Ways You Can Use Facebook Hashtags

Facebook hashtags will change the way your business interacts on the social networking site, if the feature is soon added as insiders have suggested. Flickr also added hashtags recently to its latest mobile app. Last week we reported why some businesses might want to rethink Facebook for their marketing and communications needs.

But it now appears that assessment may come with caveats.

Hashtags (a word or phrase prefixed with the symbol #), a feature up until now associated only with rival Twitter, could change the way business owners and entrepreneurs network, interact and share on Facebook. Reports have been unspecific about when the company may roll out the new Facebook hashtags feature. But until then, below are five ways suggested by Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill of Web Success Team that Facebook hashtags may improve your business experience.

1. Find Better Conversations

It goes without saying that conversations are still happening on Facebook, but they can be difficult to locate using simple Facebook search tools. Because you are often networking with people you know on Facebook rather than discovering new people who share your interests, hashtags may be a huge help in connecting with people in your niche or industry, just by finding their conversations.

2. Join a Chat

Of course chats have long been possible on Facebook, but hashtags could make them so much easier to start and follow. Instead of setting up chats on a particular fan or personal page, hashtags would make it easy to organize a chat around a topic, niche or interest. This would allow others to view that chat later through the same hashtag.

3. Do Some Research

You can do some simple searching to locate pages of interest on Facebook today, but the search may be difficult with some terms yielding literally hundreds of results. Hashtags, if incorporated on Facebook as they are on Twitter, might make it easier to monitor trending topics and to locate specific conversations built around the topics in which you are most interested.

4. Locate Tribes

Distinct hashtags may make it easier to locate specific groups of Facebook users. For example, those having discussions around very specific hashtags like #smallbusiness or even #BizBookAwards. Knowing these hashtags ahead of time would make it easy to connect with these tribes more quickly and join in their discussions.

5. Check Out the Competition

Obviously, hashtags on Facebook could give you the opportunity to see in a different way what audiences are saying about your competition (and, for that matter, what they are saying about you.) They would allow you to track conversations beyond your competitor’s Facebook page to see what messages are going out to other groups of users and what kinds of responses they solicit.

Share how you will use the new Facebook hashtags for your business and whether the new feature will change how you look at and use Facebook in the future.

5 Ways You Can Use Facebook Hashtags

Facebook hashtags will change the way your business interacts on the social networking site, if the feature is soon added as insiders have suggested. Flickr also added hashtags recently to its latest mobile app. Last week we reported why some businesses might want to rethink Facebook for their marketing and communications needs.

But it now appears that assessment may come with caveats.

Hashtags (a word or phrase prefixed with the symbol #), a feature up until now associated only with rival Twitter, could change the way business owners and entrepreneurs network, interact and share on Facebook. Reports have been unspecific about when the company may roll out the new Facebook hashtags feature. But until then, below are five ways suggested by Janette Speyer and Katrina McNeill of Web Success Team that Facebook hashtags may improve your business experience.

1. Find Better Conversations

It goes without saying that conversations are still happening on Facebook, but they can be difficult to locate using simple Facebook search tools. Because you are often networking with people you know on Facebook rather than discovering new people who share your interests, hashtags may be a huge help in connecting with people in your niche or industry, just by finding their conversations.

2. Join a Chat

Of course chats have long been possible on Facebook, but hashtags could make them so much easier to start and follow. Instead of setting up chats on a particular fan or personal page, hashtags would make it easy to organize a chat around a topic, niche or interest. This would allow others to view that chat later through the same hashtag.

3. Do Some Research

You can do some simple searching to locate pages of interest on Facebook today, but the search may be difficult with some terms yielding literally hundreds of results. Hashtags, if incorporated on Facebook as they are on Twitter, might make it easier to monitor trending topics and to locate specific conversations built around the topics in which you are most interested.

4. Locate Tribes

Distinct hashtags may make it easier to locate specific groups of Facebook users. For example, those having discussions around very specific hashtags like #smallbusiness or even #BizBookAwards. Knowing these hashtags ahead of time would make it easy to connect with these tribes more quickly and join in their discussions.

5. Check Out the Competition

Obviously, hashtags on Facebook could give you the opportunity to see in a different way what audiences are saying about your competition (and, for that matter, what they are saying about you.) They would allow you to track conversations beyond your competitor’s Facebook page to see what messages are going out to other groups of users and what kinds of responses they solicit.

Share how you will use the new Facebook hashtags for your business and whether the new feature will change how you look at and use Facebook in the future.