Marketing
I'm terrible at remembering names.
I was never great. After having my children, my pregnancy brain did not completely go away (for those of you who have never been pregnant, when you are, your memory is shot!).
So I've gotten used to writing a person's name down after meeting them.
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What do you do when someone posts something unflattering about your company on a blog? Do you respond?
We’ve received this question a few times from our viewers and each time it has elicited a different response from our show panel. This is far from a black and white issue.
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I'm a big fan of finding a mentor or a counselor to help you launch or grow a business, but that doesn't mean everything they tell you is right.
Lately, a couple of entrepreneurs told me horror stories about advice they got early on in their careers.
One woman who runs a successful fashion Web site told me this week that a small business counselor actually discouraged her from leaving Corporate America and starting her own firm.
Thank goodness she didn't listen.
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Many of you who read my Twitter post a couple of months ago took me up on the offer to get on the social networking site and started tweeting to help promote your business.
Unfortunately, many of you just don't seem to get Twitter yet (don't worry -- I'm not going to name names).
You can't just tweet over and over again about your products or services. Well, actually you can do whatever you want on Twitter, but just listing products in hopes someone will head over to your Web site and buy your wares is going to get you ostracized, aka un-followed, and fast.
For the majority of people out there that don't know, first I'll start by explaining what the heck Twitter is.
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Your opinion counts!
We've made changes to the Your Business show page based on your previous feedback, now please fill out our survey and tell us if you like it.
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I attended a trade show down south last week and was surprised at how busy it was. In spite of the economy, attendance by both exhibitors and attendees was strong.
In fact, many companies I spoke to told me that this is not the time to skimp on marketing. While most of them are not planning any over-the-top campaigns, they're still continuing with efforts to attract leads and customers. So in light of that I wanted to go back to a story we did a while ago on "Your Business" called Trade Show 101.
Now more than ever, if you spend thousands of dollars on a trade show, you want to make sure you get a return on that investment.
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My local newspaper has been shrinking and that's making me very sad. But you know what's been making me very mad? The number of coupons in the damn thing seems to be multiplying.
I may not be able to read in-depth stories about my community, but I can get 50 cents off diapers and poisoned peanut butter products. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
What will happen to all those glossy coupons when the foretold death of newspapers finally occurs in this country?
One entrepreneur is already benefiting from print media's downfall, and the economic downturn.
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From JJ Ramberg:
This past weekend our senior producer Chris and I went down to Tampa to do a story on small businesses that were working with the NFL around the Big Game. As so often happens, there were so many more interesting things about the companies we covered than we had time to talk about on air.
We met a woman named Cindy Dervech who owns a company called Breezin Entertainment and Productions which provides bands and other entertainment for events. She was thrilled to be working with the NFL since, as you can imagine, business had been down recently.
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Many years ago, my mom and dad took us to see the circus at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan, and much to their disappointment all my two sisters and I did was beg for souvenirs. It drove my father Yani crazy.
He'd yell at us in a Turkish accent: "I brought you to da cirkis and all you want is dis junk?"
Yesterday, I realized why he was so mad. As my husband and I dragged our six- and nine-year-old kids to the nation's Capitol to watch history unfold, all they wanted was an Obama bobble head.
I was frustrated that my kids didn't quite grasp the importance of the day, and I was pretty upset -- until I met Roderik Williams from Gary, Ind.
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So it finally happened. I read a "tweet" this week about someone having a bowel movement.
It was just like any other day. I was perusing social networking site Twitter when I came across this clear example of too much information.
A lot of people think Twitter is all about inane stuff like this, but in reality bowel-movement notifications are a rarity among the great comments you find on this Web site. Basically, Twitter is a place where people share a sentence or two about something great they read, or an interesting blog post they wrote.
It's also an ideal place to get the word out about your service or product -- for free.
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