Conferences, Webinars, Summits and Competitions for Small Biz

Build your skills, make new connections, find opportunities!  Our hand-curated list of conferences, events, webinars, competitions, online summits and awards is below.

We choose only the highest quality â€" and only what’s relevant to small business personnel and entrepreneurs.  So take a look, and get involved.

Welcome to our latest curated list of events, contests and awards for small businesses, solo entrepreneurs and growing companies. To see a full list or to submit your own event, contest or award listing, visit the Small Business Events Calendar.

Featured Events, Contests and Awards

Affiliate Management Days San Francisco 2014Affiliate Management Days San Francisco 2014
March 19, 2014, San Francisco, CA

AM Days is the must attend event for affiliate managers who are responsible for their company’s affiliate marketing strategy, management and operations. Whether you have an existing affiliate program or you are creating a new initiative, AMDays offers you valuable insight into how other online retailers are successfully implementing and managing their affiliate programs. Topics include: Affiliate program set up; Affiliate recruitment techniques; Affiliate marketing fraud; M-commerce; and much more.
Hashtag: #AMDays

ICON14 by InfusionsoftICON14 by Infusionsoft
April 23, 2014, Phoenix, AZ

#ICON14 is the eighth annual conference for small business, hosted by Infusionsoft (previously called Infusioncon). Over 3,000 attendees expected. Confirmed speakers include Seth Godin, JJ Ramberg and Peter Shankman.

Hashtag: #ICON14
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smallbiztrends (Get an extra $100 off)

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This weekly listing of small business events, contests and awards is provided as a community service by Small Business Trends and SmallBizTechnology.



In Our Community, Marketing and Design Predictions for 2014

Here’s our latest community news and information roundup sharing information from the blogs and other sources we follow. Read below how can help make these updates even better.

Marketing Predictions for 2014 (Infusionsoft)

The first in a three part series from Ramon Ray, this post asks 12 important thought leaders in the world of entrepreneurship their takes on marketing in the new year. First we hear from Seth Godin, Small Business Trends CEO Anita Campbell and Ann Handley of Marketing Prof. There answers may surprise you.

And More Marketing Predictions (Affinity Express Blog)

What predictions would you get if you were to ask the top chief marketing officers to gaze into a crystal ball. We think you’d find small businesses have been innovating in a lot of these areas already. Marketer Kriti Adlakha has these observations from the latest CMO survey.

Web Design Trends for the New Year (All Business)

And let’s not forget, while we’re on the subject of new trends for a new year to look at your business website. Haris Bacic has these forecasts. Again, small business owners may have already been experimenting with some of this stuff.

New Tips for Business Blogging (BizSugar)

Martin Lindeskog is a self-proclaimed “serious blogger” and entrepreneur. So when he took exception to a recent blog post shared on BizSugar, the community asked for his own advice. (He currently maintains 10+ at one time) Here are his suggestions.

How Quality Control Defines Your Company (Aladay LLC)

You may not think of quality control as a kind of marketing. But really it is, says business consultant Aaron Aveiro. When companies decide to d things like sacrificing quality for quantity they are really making a decision about how they want their business to be perceived.

Defining Your Personal Brand (Brittany Velasco)

Nowadays everyone needs to think about branding, as Brittany, a broadcast journalism student at Linwood University in Missouri is learning. Here’s what Brittany is discovering about the importance of a personal brand in any industry. And yes, it applies to entrepreneurs too.

A First Time For Everything (Sword and the Script)

You can follow marketing, branding and other business advice all you want. But in the end, it’s probably the innovative approach that works the best. So try to be that person who does what’s never been done before. Frank Strong has this brief history of memorable firsts in marketing.

Five Tips for Marketing Success  (Entrepreneurs Club Radio)

And moving into the new year, here are some other thoughts about entrepreneurship from successful entrepreneur and radio host Kip Marlowe. Actually this talk Kip gave at Lakeland Community College was in December, but the video has just been posted. Have a look.

Marketing for the big game  (123 Print Blog)

Believe it or not, you can’t use the words “Super” and “Bowl” together in a sentence in advertising leading up to the event, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the excitement to supercharge your marketing efforts. Rhonda Walinga has these thoughts.

We hope you’ll help us make future editions of our community roundup even better. Shoot us an email with your suggestions at sbtips@gmail.com. Or submit your article on BizSugar, the community we visit regularly to find the newest and most authentic small business voices.

Couple reading photo via Shutterstock



10 YouTube Alternatives for Small Businesses

YouTube recently began rolling out unlimited video streaming for all users. The Google-owned video site has been demonstrating the worth of online video to individuals and brands alike for years, and has stood out as the go-to video sharing site above its competition.

But being the most popular doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best or only option for your business. Live streaming, chatting, easy sharing and other features are also readily available on other video platforms, and have been for years. Below are ten YouTube alternatives you might not have considered.

Vimeo

vimeo

Vimeo is a community of creatives and likeminded individuals who share their work through online videos. The site includes creative tools like music and visual filters, as well as sharing options and a built-in community of other users. It also recently improved its video player for speed, social sharing and ease of mobile use.  According to comScore, Vimeo is one of the top 10 video sites in the United States, as of December 2013.

The platform offers a free account with one HD video upload per week. Users who want to add more videos, or gain more processing or need a professional or business account can upgrade starting at less than $10 per month, on up.

DailyMotion

dailymotion

This French video-sharing website allows users to upload unlimited HD videos for free. Categories include music videos, short movies, TV shows, humor, sports and more. It also includes a community where users can find and follow other accounts, watch live shows and interact with other users.

The site gets about 2.5 billion video views per month and over 112 million unique monthly visitors. It also offers 35 different localized versions of the platform in 18 different languages.

Vine

vine

Users of this app can create 6-second looping videos and easily share them via Twitter and other social media sites. The Twitter-owned site is popular with young people and experienced a 403% growth in 2013 according to a study by Global Web Index.

In addition to sharing videos, users can also follow other users and browse by category or most popular.

Instagram

instagram

This popular photo-sharing app added video functionality in June of last year. It’s similar to Vine in some ways, but allows up to 15 seconds of video and offers visual filter options.

It also has a larger user base and engagement than Vine and many of the other video sharing options, with 150 million monthly active users and 1.2 billion likes per day.

SpreeCast

spreecast

This social video platform allows users to chat one-on-one with other users without downloading any extra software. The browser-based platform also offers public forum type conversations, as well as a free platform for business meetings.

Founded in 2011, the platform has hosted conferences and chats with big names such as Anderson Cooper, Miley Cyrus, One Direction and more.

Google Hangouts

googlehangouts

Another online chatting option, Google Hangouts, is available both on computer and mobile devices. It allows users to host live video calls with up to ten friends via video or voice. For those who want to reach a larger audience, Hangouts On Air offers a platform for live streaming discussions or other content.

Google has approximately 540 million active users across its platforms each month, and 300 million active just in the Google+ stream.

Flickr

flickr

Flickr is best known for images, but the platform also provides video hosting. Users with a free Flickr account can upload 2 videos of up to 90 seconds and 150MB per month. Pro users can get unlimited uploads for $25 per year.

The Yahoo owned service also has a pretty respectable user base of over 87 million. As with many of these platforms, it allows users to browse and search photos and follow other users.

SlideShare

slideshare

This presentation and infographics service isn’t really known for videos. But users of SlideShare’s silver, gold or platinum paid plans do have the option to upload and share videos.

The platform, which gets about 51.6 million monthly visitors, also allows businesses to collect leads on their content, add branding and access analytics.

Screencast.com

screencast

Screencast.com offers a video hosting platform with a heavy focus on privacy and control. Users can choose to share their videos publicly by embedding them on their blog or website, password protect them or share them with only certain people.

A free account includes 2 GB of storage and 2 GB of monthly bandwidth. Users who need more can sign up for a pro account at under $10 per month.

Animoto

animoto

Animoto is a video site centered around creation. Users can upload photos or videos and add themes, music and text. Animoto can then put together a full video or presentation that users can share via social media or embed.

The Pro accounts for business range start at around $249 per year, and include unlimited videos and storage, as well as branding options and increased licensed music.

Video Concept Photo via Shutterstock

More in:

The Value of “YouTube Marketing Power”

The Value of “YouTube Marketing Power”

Did you hear how YouTube is the new black for 2014? Review the news on it during the last year, and you can see how it rivals mobile as a marketing hot button of interest. For example, Nielsen is including YouTube views in its rating calculations.  Google announced in an earnings report that 40% of YouTube …

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Great for teaching you how to use YouTube marketing to grow your business.

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Did you hear how YouTube is the new black for 2014? Review the news on it during the last year, and you can see how it rivals mobile as a marketing hot button of interest.

For example, Nielsen is including YouTube views in its rating calculations.  Google announced in an earnings report that 40% of YouTube views are via a mobile device - adding to its exposure as the second largest search engine.

If you want your business to be fashionable for this trend, read “YouTube Marketing Power: How to Use Video to Find More Prospects, Launch Your Products, and Reach a Massive Audience“ by Jason Miles.  Miles has written several digital media books, including a book I reviewed earlier titled Instagram Power.

I enjoyed the Instagram book, and had discovered this review copy at NetGalley with an anticipation to be “in vogue” when it comes to YouTube.

What is on YouTube Tonight?

The early chapters of YouTube Marketing Power are helpful for small businesses that have not fully grasped why YouTube and video in general is an aid for business.  Miles asserts that users forget that people can comment as easily as they do on a Facebook post or Reddit thread.  He notes the value of social discovery:

“When loyal fans share your videos either within YouTube on their playlists or on other social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, they help spread the news about you and your brand.”

Miles encourages the reader to comment and share video as a business strategy. This is mentioned in the book, almost with a brute force, post-everywhere tone that can seem to emphasize tactics over meaningful strategy. But the suggestion supports Miles’ viewpoint that businesses underutilize engagement to derive real value from YouTube.

People should comment on a video, not just watch a message.  Ultimately YouTube Marketing Power offers enough variety of tips for any business to find an innovation to apply.

For making the most of YouTube, you’ll want to read about customizing your YouTube channel. There are unique applications to help organize things such as creating links with other platforms.  That may sound as simple as adding a URL - it is - but Miles also covers value in selecting how those links are deployed:

“Instead of just pointing this website link to your top-level domain name, consider where you might want new YouTube visitors to enter your website and point the link to that destination, or “deep link” within your site.”

Miles covers the details to setting up a channel and offers good engagement-building suggestions such as hosting contests.   I felt that the overviews are better at explaining YouTube usage than any blog post series or Google-provided instruction.  Understandably, a book should be more functional than the examples I mention. But trust me, many fail their claimed mission â€" and this book doesn’t.

When YouTube Money Becomes Your Money

Even better are the sections on monetizing YouTube. I have a bias, but I am grateful analytics is included this section. The chapter that notes analytics rightly displays how strategic Google Analytics links to YouTube views can be. In fact establishing connections across social media is a consistent theme in Miles’ recommendations.

For example, read this comment about a company that spent thousands a day for building a Facebook presence but not encouraging a presence on another platform:

“They’ve spent millions, I’d guess, investing in the Facebook platform without a plan for how to integrate that effort more broadly. And if you cannot drive traffic from Facebook to YouTube, how in the world will you drive it to your online shopping cart? The answer is that you won’t.”

There are highlights of successful YouTube examples among businesses and individuals, such as Mindy McNight of the Cute Girls Hairstyles, actress Rosanna Pansino, and even Potter’s House, better known as the house of worship from famed minister T.D. Jakes.  These examples may be different than entrepreneurs who typically appear on Shark Tank, but the usage is examined in a question and answer format that should yield a few ideas that you can make your own.

And then there is a discussion about the perils of naming.  T.D. Jakes used the name Thepottertube instead of The Potter House:

“By the time we researched how to change our YouTube channel user name, we realized two things: (1) it wasn’t possible to change user names and (2) our channel had grown so much in popularity that we didn’t want to create a new one. Therefore we let the channel stay as is, and people seem to actually like the different name.”

A good read when researching a way to update social media plans, YouTube Marketing Power will organize your digital effort to connect with customer visually. Small business owners, solo entrepreneurs and even corporate managers will be in style this season if they incorporate tips from this book.



7 of the Top NYC Business Networking Groups

It goes without saying, but face-to-face networking is one of the best ways for a professional running and trying to grow a small business to meet other like-minded individuals. Here is a list of what we consider to be the best NYC Business Networking Groups.



Six Short-Term Goals for Long-Term Success

Small businesses can create big success if they consistently set short-term, attainable goals. Whether your business is looking to expand into a new market, acquire new leads or make key new hires, these short-term goals will help you sustain momentum over the long term. 1.Make sales and marketing a priority. Clearly, sales and marketing are [...]

The post Six Short-Term Goals for Long-Term Success appeared first on Small Business Technology.



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