4 Tips To Getting A Portion of the Government Money Ear-Marked for Small Business

If you own a small business, you can possibly get a portion of government money earmarked for small business. Under a mandate put in place in 1958, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is obligated to ensure nearly a quarter of all Federal government contracts go to small businesses.

In a recent article that I wrote for Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Report, I point out the fact that the SBA has been missing it’s goal of getting this money to small businesses since 2005. While there is a discrepancy as to how much they are missing it by, the fact remains that this shortfall has been exposed and that the attention that has been called to this mandate is going to open opportunities for small businesses.

If you are looking to take advantage and possibly secure a piece of the pie that they need to distribute, I offer four tips that you should follow:

• Study the regulations
• Find opportunities specific to your industry
• Create a profile on the System for Award Management (SAM)
• Look for minority opportunities

For an explanation of each of these tips, you can read the full article on the D&B website here. You can also follow D&B on twitter at @DandB.

4 Tips To Getting A Portion of the Government Money Ear-Marked for Small Business

If you own a small business, you can possibly get a portion of government money earmarked for small business. Under a mandate put in place in 1958, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is obligated to ensure nearly a quarter of all Federal government contracts go to small businesses.

In a recent article that I wrote for Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Report, I point out the fact that the SBA has been missing it’s goal of getting this money to small businesses since 2005. While there is a discrepancy as to how much they are missing it by, the fact remains that this shortfall has been exposed and that the attention that has been called to this mandate is going to open opportunities for small businesses.

If you are looking to take advantage and possibly secure a piece of the pie that they need to distribute, I offer four tips that you should follow:

• Study the regulations
• Find opportunities specific to your industry
• Create a profile on the System for Award Management (SAM)
• Look for minority opportunities

For an explanation of each of these tips, you can read the full article on the D&B website here. You can also follow D&B on twitter at @DandB.

Multi-Function Printers Provide Big Business Capabilities to Small Businesses

Only a decade ago, a new business owner was forced to shop for a fax machine, copier, printer, and scanner before opening shop. The option of taking some of these functions off-site to a business support center helped some start-ups, but for small businesses required to scan and print on an ongoing basis, this can be both costly and time-consuming.

Brought to you by Staples, the world’s largest office products company and second largest internet retailer. Staples now carries the HP Officejet Pro X series, the world’s fastest desktop printers, with up to twice the speed and half the printing cost of color lasers, setting a new standard for business printing. You can visit them at http://www.staples.com/officejetprox    

Multi-Function Printers Provide Big Business Capabilities to Small Businesses

The emergence of multi-function printers has shifted the workplace, allowing businesses to keep fax capabilities while embracing new technologies, such as scan-to-e-mail. The HP Officejet Pro X series, which is available at Staples and Staples.com, goes beyond these functionalities, adding in duplex printing capabilities and lightning-fast speeds (speeds which got them into the Guinness Book of World Records!)  to help businesses operate efficiently.

Small Businesses Compete

Technology has given entrepreneurs the ability to start a small business from a home office or shared space, without clients ever realizing it. Because of this, small businesses can compete with their much larger counterparts without having to obtain a high-dollar investment. When combined with Cloud-based solutions for accounting, billing, and business operations, printing can give businesses with employees numbering from one to one thousand and one the ability to operate without an I.T. staff or a large up-front expense.

The ability to print and scan high-quality images is important, as well. Whether a small business is providing copies of a PowerPoint presentation to a roomful of conference session attendees or designing a flyer for distribution at a local event, multi-function printers offer small businesses the ability to print high-quality documents without outsourcing to a printing service. Using the wide variety of cartridges available at Staples locations, these businesses can rush out for a cartridge for that last-minute print job.

Wireless Print

For small businesses that regularly welcome visitors, the ability to print wirelessly is essential. Using HP ePrint, small businesses have access to an e-mail address specific to their printer. The print job is sent from a mobile device with the item to be printed attached. For in-house staff, HP’s new line of printers can be easily shared with the entire workgroup for easy installation.

Another benefit of wireless printing for small business owners is the ability to print from anywhere in the country. If a worker is out of state for a meeting, for instance, that worker can print to the office printer, allowing another colleague access to the printed copy.

Conserving Resources

One of the biggest pros of a multi-function printer like the HP Officejet Pro X467dn is the ability to conserve printing costs. While most offices will likely never be 100 percent paperless, all-in-one printers allow businesses to scan-to-e-mail, sending paper documents to clients and colleagues for viewing on their mobile devices or PCs.

With the full line of HP Officejet Pro X multi-function and single-function printers in Staples stores nationwide, small business owners can personally review the features of each piece of equipment before purchasing. All of the printers in HP’s Officejet Pro X line provide small businesses the ability to create high-quality print jobs that allow them to take on their biggest competitors for those high-dollar jobs.

Multi-Function Printers Provide Big Business Capabilities to Small Businesses

Only a decade ago, a new business owner was forced to shop for a fax machine, copier, printer, and scanner before opening shop. The option of taking some of these functions off-site to a business support center helped some start-ups, but for small businesses required to scan and print on an ongoing basis, this can be both costly and time-consuming.

Brought to you by Staples, the world’s largest office products company and second largest internet retailer. Staples now carries the HP Officejet Pro X series, the world’s fastest desktop printers, with up to twice the speed and half the printing cost of color lasers, setting a new standard for business printing. You can visit them at http://www.staples.com/officejetprox    

Multi-Function Printers Provide Big Business Capabilities to Small Businesses

The emergence of multi-function printers has shifted the workplace, allowing businesses to keep fax capabilities while embracing new technologies, such as scan-to-e-mail. The HP Officejet Pro X series, which is available at Staples and Staples.com, goes beyond these functionalities, adding in duplex printing capabilities and lightning-fast speeds (speeds which got them into the Guinness Book of World Records!)  to help businesses operate efficiently.

Small Businesses Compete

Technology has given entrepreneurs the ability to start a small business from a home office or shared space, without clients ever realizing it. Because of this, small businesses can compete with their much larger counterparts without having to obtain a high-dollar investment. When combined with Cloud-based solutions for accounting, billing, and business operations, printing can give businesses with employees numbering from one to one thousand and one the ability to operate without an I.T. staff or a large up-front expense.

The ability to print and scan high-quality images is important, as well. Whether a small business is providing copies of a PowerPoint presentation to a roomful of conference session attendees or designing a flyer for distribution at a local event, multi-function printers offer small businesses the ability to print high-quality documents without outsourcing to a printing service. Using the wide variety of cartridges available at Staples locations, these businesses can rush out for a cartridge for that last-minute print job.

Wireless Print

For small businesses that regularly welcome visitors, the ability to print wirelessly is essential. Using HP ePrint, small businesses have access to an e-mail address specific to their printer. The print job is sent from a mobile device with the item to be printed attached. For in-house staff, HP’s new line of printers can be easily shared with the entire workgroup for easy installation.

Another benefit of wireless printing for small business owners is the ability to print from anywhere in the country. If a worker is out of state for a meeting, for instance, that worker can print to the office printer, allowing another colleague access to the printed copy.

Conserving Resources

One of the biggest pros of a multi-function printer like the HP Officejet Pro X467dn is the ability to conserve printing costs. While most offices will likely never be 100 percent paperless, all-in-one printers allow businesses to scan-to-e-mail, sending paper documents to clients and colleagues for viewing on their mobile devices or PCs.

With the full line of HP Officejet Pro X multi-function and single-function printers in Staples stores nationwide, small business owners can personally review the features of each piece of equipment before purchasing. All of the printers in HP’s Officejet Pro X line provide small businesses the ability to create high-quality print jobs that allow them to take on their biggest competitors for those high-dollar jobs.

Small Business Trends

Among social media networks, Facebook is the undisputed king. A whopping 3.2 billion likes and comments are posted on the social media site daily, according to data collected by Media Bistro.

Facebook now has 1.15 billion users per month with about 699 million people logging on daily.

Here’s how to leverage these users with a Facebook page that will build fans and customers.

How to Create a Facebook Fan Page

Creating your Facebook fan page is the first step in Facebook marketing. Create a Facebook Fan Page as a way to keep in touch with your customers. Use the channel to build your brand and to gain the ability to respond quickly to customers’ comments, feedback and questions.

Here’s a feature overview (courtesy: Facebook Pages). When completed, your Facebook fan page should look like this:

Your Facebook fan page should be a dynamic and interactive digital hub for your brand. Here’s how to get started.

Step 1: Choose a Category and a Page Name

Choosing the right category and page name helps your fans, customers, and prospects to find you easily. It also lets those who don’t know about you discover instantly who you are and what you do. Picking the right category and page name also helps with SEO (search engine optimization) and allows for extra visibility and traffic from search engines.

Here are the six types of fan pages you can choose from on Facebook:

1. Local Business or Place
2. Company Organization or Institution
3. Brand or Product
4. Artist, Band, or Public Figure
5. Entertainment
6. Cause or Community

Marketing site MarketingGum has more on what each type of page means and how to choose the right one. But unless you are an artist, musician, public figure or in the entertainment industry, you will likely be choosing one of the first three.

Important: You can change the name and category of your Facebook fan page later on, but you can’t change the type of page, so choose carefully.

Step 2: Add Logo and Other Images to Your Fan Page

Next, you’ll want to load your logo and some images. Assume you have been marketing your business for some time across multiple channels. You’ll want to keep your logo consistent. Your photos should give visitors an instant understanding of your business and the products or services you provide.

Check out how major brands like Windows and Coca Cola have used logo and photos to build their brands.

Step 3: Fill in the Details. Let the World Know What Your Page is About

Fill in the basic information about your business and add your website URL. Think of Facebook as a social window to your business. What you write here helps create first impressions. So use the right personality and voice to represent your business well.

Step 4: Tweak the URL for a More Memorable Facebook Address

Facebook automatically gives you a dedicated URL for your Facebook fan page. However, the original one (default URL) is a mishmash of numbers, characters, and weird symbols no one would ever remember. Instead, claim your Vanity URL and change the address of your page to be more descriptive of your business. This will make it easier to remember and to promote later on.

Step 5: Work on a Cover Photo

Think of cover photos as flexible billboards. You can change the photo as many times as you like. The standard size for the cover photo is 851 by 315 pixels. And it will be the first impression visitors get of your brand on Facebook. Here are some of the choices you might consider:

• Pictures of people using your product.
• Custom graphics or photos that tell a story about your business or brand.
• Other materials related to your product or service: Album art work for musicians, a menu for restaurants, etc.
• A creative blend of images and graphics, perhaps incorporating both the cover photo and logo image, that tells something interesting about your business or simply attracts attention.

Want more inspiration? Check out these creative examples of Timeline cover photos from Social Media Examiner.

Get to Work on Your Fan Page

Building Your Timeline and Writing Your Posts

The Facebook timeline on your fan page is at the heart of engagement and brand building for your business. This is where it all starts.

Andrea Wahl has a few good examples of how some businesses use timelines effectively. Facebook has added some new features such as the ability to “pin posts” and to showcase larger stories with extra large photos, videos and links to drive more engagement.

You can add a “star” to highlight important stories or you can hide/delete stories if you decide not to display them on your timeline.

You may even set milestones to define your key moments in history: Your startup date, your achievements, new branches, etc. You also have the ability to add specific milestone photos (843 by 403 pixels) as a way to use visuals for image enhancement.

Keep Track of Engagement

As you go about posting information, tips, and updates, photos, and milestones and responding to comments from your new fans, you’ll also want to keep an eye on how your engagement progresses over time. Facebook provides you all the tools you need to study engagement.

To start with, your friend activity snapshot gives you an overall look into how many of your friends like your page. You might choose to invite more people on your network when you think they’ll benefit from it. On your “Friend Activity” feed, you’ll also get to know what others have to say about your business.

Your Facebook fan page admin panel will look like the snapshot below, with notifications, messages, insights at a glance, new “like” or “fan” notification box, and a separate link to view your page insights in detail (discussed below):

Facebook also provides you with a way to manage your posts and content over time. You could manage all your posts (including the ones you choose to hide) from a central location. You can filter stories by year or type, or edit, delete, or star posts. You can also choose to review timestamps and make sure your posts accurately show up under respective milestones.

Promote Your Facebook Fan Page

Once your Facebook fan page is live, it’s time to let the world know. Facebook gives you several ways to promote your fan page. You can “invite friends” or “promote your page” using paid advertisements targeted to other users.

Your Facebook fan page, like any other digital property you own, has value by itself.

So, it makes sense to promote and market your fan page just like you’d promote a website. Justin Wise of Social Media Examiner reveals 20 different ways to promote your fan page. The folks at Under30Ceo.com have another 7 ways to promote your fan page without spending a dime.

Ann Smarty also has some advice to help promote your Facebook fan page and get lots of fans in a post at Search Engine Journal.

Of course, you could go full-steam ahead on promotions (discussed in detail below): Do guest blogger outreach programs, launch webinars, give away free reports or whitepapers, get into conversations on other Facebook fan pages.

You can join groups within and outside of Facebook, “like” other sites in hopes they will come back to “like” your page, and even use offline promotions to get the word out.

Promotion > Exposure > Fans > Reach and engagement > Business.

Super Tips on Facebook Fan Page Promotion

It’s easy to set up a fan page but it’s incredibly hard to grow your fan page to reach a level where you benefit from engagement, conversations, and the community. It’s all about building on the “like” button. Here are a few “super tips” to help promote your fan page. But before you get started, it’s important to realize this:

We live in a trust economy, as Gary Vaynerchuck of VaynerMedia puts it. To earn customers’ trust, you need to give them value first (often for free).

Use Webinars to Boost “Likes” and Engagement

Webinars aren’t for selling. They are for providing information and value. They are to motivate, educate, and train. Use webinars to “wow” your audience with information and value. Then ask them to “like” your Facebook page afterwards.

Cross-Promote

Place social media buttons or links within every email campaign. Print out links for your Facebook fan page on all your offline marketing campaigns. Be sure to include links for Facebook fan pages on your podcasts and videos.

Guest Blog for “Likes”

Marketers have taken to guest blogging as a form of outreach because you can leverage visibility on another popular blog. That often means that guest bloggers get extra traffic, credibility, exposure, and even conversions. Guest blogger outreach programs have been used for promoting blogs, businesses, and websites.

But using a guest blogging opportunity to drive traffic to your Facebook page is another option.

Distribute traffic equally to your fan pages and your website properties to get a better return from your guest blogging campaigns.

Launch Offline Events

Launch events on Eventbrite and start launching events locally on the subject of your expertise. Be sure to promote your Facebook page at the event and encourage those attending to visit and “like” it too.

How to Make Facebook Fan Pages Stick: Adding Bells and Whistles

Another great way to promote your business using Facebook is to use contests, videos and giveaways to drive engagement on your page. You can take a DIY (do-it-yourself) approach or find some special apps to make these events easier to hold and promote.

Below is a list of tools that can help:

North Social

North Social has varying plans with apps including mobile sweepstakes, mobile coupons, and mobile signups (to leverage the fact that Facebook is big on mobile too). The regular apps include Instagram, deal shares, video channels, showcase, “show and sell”, “Twitter feed”, “ sign up page”, pages to make those “first impressions”, and much more.

Note: There’s a workable plan here for just about any fan page. If you have more than one fan page to manage, you’ll have to look at special plans for large companies or agencies.

Heyo

Heyo, once called Lujure, provides an app that helps you launch promotions, deals, and contests. Using a drag-and-drop wizard, you can create fan pages that engage, interact, or maybe even dazzle your fans.

Social Candy

Social Candy has apps for running quizzes and sweepstakes, sharing content and coupons, and holding photo contests.

WildFire

WildFire features interactive campaigns, large-scale analytics, and targeted advertising. Though it works for many kinds of businesses, it is clearly meant for companies and agencies that manage multiple brands.

MarketingGum

Marketing Gum has apps enabling email opt-in, surveys, sweepstakes, photo contests, and many other features to liven up your fan page. With a far more affordable pricing plan, it’s a budget alternative for bloggers and small businesses.

Use Metrics to Measure Success

Facebook provides you with Insights - its built-in metrics tool - to help you check on the progress, engagement, and growth of your fan page. Diana Urban on Ustandout.com provides a helpful post about how to use Facebook insights to measure and analyze your fan page.

Often, you’ll need more than just Facebook insights. A huge suite of free and paid tools are available. They include PageViral, Social Crawlytics, and many others.

The post How to Create a Facebook Fan Page appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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Are Business Plans Relevant in Today’s Dynamic Market Conditions?

Business planning is a well-documented subject with thousands of books available on writing the most effective business plan. You can either write a business plan yourself or hire a consultant to do the job. 

But given the rapid pace of change in today’s business environment, are business plans as relevant as they used to be?

A somewhat dated but relevant survey of Inc 500 founders in 2002 revealed the following:

• Only 40 percent of enterprise founders had written a formal business plan before starting
• Of these 65 percent deviated from the initial plan
• Only 12 percent of the Inc 500 founders had done some sort of market research before starting their company

Incidentally, these results were consistent with a survey of Inc 500 founders in 1989 confirming that business planning did not necessarily translate to business success.

William Hsu, co-founder and managing partner at start-up accelerator had this to say in an interview to Inc. on relevance of business plans, “We look for three things in a potential start-up: market, team, and concept. The team is by far the most important element, and the second is market. The idea itself is the least important.”

So with factors such as the right team and timing the market gaining precedence, how can new-businesses benefit from a well-documented business plan?

Pros of a Business Plan 

Even the naysayers will agree that a business plan is a prerequisite for raising capital from banks and venture capitalists. A comprehensive business plan will help you answer questions that potential investors might have and give them the confidence that you have really ‘thought things through’. The document also becomes the basis for consultation with industry experts.

A business plan is useful for identifying potential roadblocks and defining timelines for implementation. Plotting numbers on paper puts things in perspective.

Once the business idea is put into action, the owner is often required to multitask and can loose sight of the initial ideas for expansion. A business plan serves as a valuable tool for tracking progress against planned initiatives, which is especially significant when you need to repay borrowed capital.

Itai Sadan, Co-founder & CEO DudaMobile (they help small and medium businesses create mobile-friendly websites) says, ”I always found that a business plan was more for myself than for external investors. Working on it gave me the ability to withdraw myself from day-to-day tactical stuff and look at my business from a 10,000 foot view and make sure that I understand my market, what problem we are solving, and how we plan to make money. We started DudaMobile over 4 years ago, since then we have grown to over 5 million customers, raised over $18 million and when I look at that first business plan I created, the underlying assumption are still aligned pretty well with our business reality today.”

Ron Daniel CEO of PlanetSoho (which also provides business planning tools) agrees. He says,“Business plans are relevant and will always stay relevant. True, it is becoming harder and harder to predict how a new business will behave over the first years, but the main objective of a good business plan is not to predict anything but to give the thinking tools of all possible variables one must consider when launching a business.”

Cons of a Business Plan

Detractors contend that business plans by their very nature are contrary to an entrepreneurial approach i.e. being able to learn from experience and adapt to change. Basing all decisions on a business plan may actually lead to paralysis by analysis. 

Again Ron Daniel says, “A good business plan is like the business ‘user manual’ it shows where to go, what elements to consider etc., it shouldn’t be a fixed course of action in any scenario”.

Today’s business environment requires that opportunities be seized and entrepreneurs can learn more from launching their product/ service and garnering real life customer feedback, than spending several months evaluating if they have a sound business idea.

Hsu says, “One out of every 30 venture start-ups succeeds-and that’s after getting funded. What that means is that entrepreneurs need to take a product to market as fast as they can in any form, even if it’s 10% of the original vision. They have to test it to see if it’s a market fit, if it resonates with customers, and is something they’d eventually pay for.”

A business plan should not take more than 3 to 4 weeks. Business planning software such as PaloAltoSoftware and BizPlan.com can significantly reduce the time it takes to format an investor-ready business plan. 

Do you agree that business plans are important but entrepreneurs should not spend excessive amounts of time perfecting them?  Please share your opinion in the comments box below.

Are Business Plans Relevant in Today’s Dynamic Market Conditions?

Business planning is a well-documented subject with thousands of books available on writing the most effective business plan. You can either write a business plan yourself or hire a consultant to do the job. 

But given the rapid pace of change in today’s business environment, are business plans as relevant as they used to be?

A somewhat dated but relevant survey of Inc 500 founders in 2002 revealed the following:

• Only 40 percent of enterprise founders had written a formal business plan before starting
• Of these 65 percent deviated from the initial plan
• Only 12 percent of the Inc 500 founders had done some sort of market research before starting their company

Incidentally, these results were consistent with a survey of Inc 500 founders in 1989 confirming that business planning did not necessarily translate to business success.

William Hsu, co-founder and managing partner at start-up accelerator had this to say in an interview to Inc. on relevance of business plans, “We look for three things in a potential start-up: market, team, and concept. The team is by far the most important element, and the second is market. The idea itself is the least important.”

So with factors such as the right team and timing the market gaining precedence, how can new-businesses benefit from a well-documented business plan?

Pros of a Business Plan 

Even the naysayers will agree that a business plan is a prerequisite for raising capital from banks and venture capitalists. A comprehensive business plan will help you answer questions that potential investors might have and give them the confidence that you have really ‘thought things through’. The document also becomes the basis for consultation with industry experts.

A business plan is useful for identifying potential roadblocks and defining timelines for implementation. Plotting numbers on paper puts things in perspective.

Once the business idea is put into action, the owner is often required to multitask and can loose sight of the initial ideas for expansion. A business plan serves as a valuable tool for tracking progress against planned initiatives, which is especially significant when you need to repay borrowed capital.

Itai Sadan, Co-founder & CEO DudaMobile (they help small and medium businesses create mobile-friendly websites) says, ”I always found that a business plan was more for myself than for external investors. Working on it gave me the ability to withdraw myself from day-to-day tactical stuff and look at my business from a 10,000 foot view and make sure that I understand my market, what problem we are solving, and how we plan to make money. We started DudaMobile over 4 years ago, since then we have grown to over 5 million customers, raised over $18 million and when I look at that first business plan I created, the underlying assumption are still aligned pretty well with our business reality today.”

Ron Daniel CEO of PlanetSoho (which also provides business planning tools) agrees. He says,“Business plans are relevant and will always stay relevant. True, it is becoming harder and harder to predict how a new business will behave over the first years, but the main objective of a good business plan is not to predict anything but to give the thinking tools of all possible variables one must consider when launching a business.”

Cons of a Business Plan

Detractors contend that business plans by their very nature are contrary to an entrepreneurial approach i.e. being able to learn from experience and adapt to change. Basing all decisions on a business plan may actually lead to paralysis by analysis. 

Again Ron Daniel says, “A good business plan is like the business ‘user manual’ it shows where to go, what elements to consider etc., it shouldn’t be a fixed course of action in any scenario”.

Today’s business environment requires that opportunities be seized and entrepreneurs can learn more from launching their product/ service and garnering real life customer feedback, than spending several months evaluating if they have a sound business idea.

Hsu says, “One out of every 30 venture start-ups succeeds-and that’s after getting funded. What that means is that entrepreneurs need to take a product to market as fast as they can in any form, even if it’s 10% of the original vision. They have to test it to see if it’s a market fit, if it resonates with customers, and is something they’d eventually pay for.”

A business plan should not take more than 3 to 4 weeks. Business planning software such as PaloAltoSoftware and BizPlan.com can significantly reduce the time it takes to format an investor-ready business plan. 

Do you agree that business plans are important but entrepreneurs should not spend excessive amounts of time perfecting them?  Please share your opinion in the comments box below.

5 Secrets of a Google Plus Marketing Ninja

It may not be Facebook, but Google Plus has an impressive and growing reach. The platforms connection with Google assures that posts will be highly visible in search.

But some special Google Plus marketing tips will also elevate your approach to what might be called Google Plus Marketing Ninja status. Here are some important secrets for marketing with Google Plus from the ninja of social media marketing herself, Lisa Barone.

Formatting is Your Friend

With Goggle Plus content whizzing by like scenery outside the window of a fast moving car, it helps to have something â€" anything â€" to set yours apart.

Thankfully, some simple formatting hacks can help you create just enough of an impact to get readers to pause and have a closer look. Lisa suggests:

• *text* to give selected wording that bold look,
• _text_ to add italics for emphasis,
• and -text- to strike through other words for a dramatic effect sure to catch your reader’s attention.

Be sure to use formatting to help your content stand out.

Plus Mentions Add to Engagement

Here’s another important Google Plus feature you should be using to create greater engagement with followers and those you have in your circles. It’s the +Mention feature (shown below) as Lisa explains:

A +Mention on Google+ is similar to @’ing someone on Twitter or tagging them on Facebook. It’s functionality designed to let a person or brand know that you’ve mentioned them in the hope that they’ll share your content with their own audience or engage directly on your page. To tag someone on Google+ and get their attention, simply type +[their name]. As you type, you’ll notice that Google will propagate a list of people for you to select. Just make sure you click the right one.

Hashtags Aren’t Just for Twitter

No, hashtags aren’t just for Twitter anymore. Here’s how Lisa suggests they be used (shown above) to add special ninja powers to your Google Plus marketing:

When you insert hashtags into your Google+ status updates, Google will automatically link that hashtag to the search results for that query. By pairing your status updates to high-traffic Google+ queries, this can help your updates attract more attention. For example, if you write a post about marketing lessons from American Idol, by using the #americanidol hashtag in your update, it makes your content more findable to people searching for news on that topic.

Archives Can Be Excellent

If you’ve created a lot of content in the past, don’t let it go to waste. As Lisa explains, Google Plus is a fast moving community with lots of content sharing going on.

Also, people are checking in to find out the latest in the news streams of the people and brands they follow at many different times, so there’s need for you to keep that content coming.

Recycling archives content can be a great way to give your old content new mileage and at the same time keep providing new updates for your Google Plus followers.

Hangouts Offer Many Options

You’ve probably heard of or even used Google Hangouts, the video conferencing platform offered free to anyone with a Google Plus account. But maybe you’ve never really thought about how this tool can be most effectively used for marketing purposes.

Of course, Google Plus can help facilitate daily operations, especially in a mobile work environment, Lisa explains. Think holding virtual office meetings or brainstorming sessions.

But there are other ways to use Google Hangouts for marketing too.

For example, think about recording a tutorial or Webinar. You can do this using Google Plus without the need for any additional video software, and Google can record and upload your Webinar to YouTube for free, thus giving it maximum visibility. You can’t ask for a simpler production process than that.

And how about using Google Hangouts to answer customer questions, create interviews, host a class or make an announcement about your brand or business?

If you can think of a way to promote your business with interactive video, Google Hangouts will probably help.

Image: Wikipedia

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