February MainStreetChamber Marketing Summit Recap: What You Missed

Last night, I spoke on a marketing panel put on by the MainStreetChamber West Metro Chapter (if you haven’t heard of the MSC, now’s a good time to check them out). On the panel with me was a first-class group of marketers from the Twin Cities area:

Manuel SantanaPaulie SkajaLisa SalineMarty StanchfieldRich Powell, and Jeff Ferrazzo rounded out the panel, bringing in experience from all areas of marketing from display and networking to affiliate and digital.

Several questions were posed to the panelists by the audience, such as:

  • If you are a new business what are some tips on getting people engaged on Facebook (before you have a lot of followers)?
  •  I just started a commercial cleaning/janitorial company and the competition is very tough. I am starting this business with no cash flow. I have been cold calling with very little results. What can I do to at least get customers to allow me to bid on there facilities?
  • What criteria determine whether a small business can develop their own marketing plan or should engage a strategic marketing professional?
  • If a small business decides to engage a strategic marketing professional to develop a marketing plan, how does one find and select the person or business that is a good match for that small business?
  • As well as several others.

MainStreetChamber Marketing Summit Photo

The event sold out; many people mentioned to me that they couldn’t get a ticket because they registered too late. Fret not tardy registrants, there’s a recording.

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Posted in Blogging, Email Marketing, Events, Facebook, For Social Media Veterans, Google, Lead Generation, Linkedin, Marketing, Mobile Business, SEO, Twitter, YouTube | 9 Comments

What You Should Know About Facebook’s New Comment System [Guest Article]

Facebook finds favor with people not just because it allows for interaction among people but also because the integration of the social networking medium with several platforms allows for sharing content that one finds interesting. Facebook is building further on this with the launch of a new comment system. The system in question takes complete control of the comments system of a blog or a website. The main features of the comments system are as follows.

How does it work?

The new comment system allows users to comment on a blog or a website using their Facebook account. The comment is simultaneously published to the user’s wall. With this, the users are effectively giving a review of the blog or the website and making it available to their acquaintances and friends on Facebook.

Facebook Comments Picture

How to implement?

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Using Twitter to Stay Linked In to Your Industry

My dad has always been a newspaper guy. For as long as I can remember he starts – or finishes – the day poring through the local and national news, gleaning every bit of info printed on the pages. Newspapers have long been a go-to source for local and national news – big picture stuff – but what about news tailored for your needs? More specifically, to help you keep tabs on your industry’s news.

Considering the average daily newspaper article runs from 600 to 1,000 words, how much time do you have to spend reading print or online news to find something specifically relevant to your business?

Let’s say you sell high-end kitchen gadgets and have a small warehouse where you run your business, shipping items such as chef’s knives and cutting boards across the globe to restaurants and foodies. When was the last time you read something about your industry in the local news? Probably never, but that’s OK. There’s plenty of information and “news” out there.

A lot comes from Twitter. You just have to go out and get it.

"Visual Guide to Twitter"

 Here are 3 ways to stay linked in to your industry using Twitter.

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New to Tech Nick Consulting: Introducing Todd Whitesel

Introducing Todd Whitesel - Digital Marketing SpecialistHello,

My name is Todd Whitesel. I’ve been a writer/editor for the past 13 years, and have writtenfor many magazines and websites, sharing my passion for music, audio, the outdoors, travel, and cooking. Additionally, I’ve been blogging for several years and have developed a strong interest in WordPress and blogging in general, as well as Internet marketing, social media and SEO.

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The Zero Inbox Strategy for Email Sanity

I’ve decided to take a little detour from the normal marketing articles to write about one of the necessary evils of business: staying on top of a constant deluge of email. Being a pretty tech-y guy, people ask me how I manage my email. I happen to use Google Apps to manage my email, but more importantly, I use all the power tools available to sort, label, tame my unruly inbox.

No matter what email system you use, whether you use webmail like Yahoo!, or Gmail, or a desktop client like Outlook or Thunderbird, your email system probably has these advanced tools. They’re easy enough to learn, and they will save you tons of time and emotional strain if you embrace them.

One of the easiest things to do to to stay on top of your email is to keep your inbox empty. This may seem foreign (especially to those who have 6500 unread emails in your inbox), but the zero inbox is very cleansing for your short term memory.

The Zero Inbox Strategy for Email Sanity

Now, just because an email isn’t in your inbox doesn’t mean it’s gone forever: quite the opposite. It just means that that email has been triaged for attention later.

Want to learn to attain the zero inbox and email sanity? Just follow this one simple rule:

“If you can’t answer it immediately, delete it, archive it, or put it in a folder.”

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Posted in Email Marketing, Google, How-to's for Beginners, Marketing | 2 Comments