Are you overwhelmed by the amount of email messages you receive? Do you have an overflowing email inbox? Are you losing potential business because it takes too long for you to respond to email messages? You are not alone!
In our next Beyond Google – Marketing and Managing on the Web Webinar Series, Virginia SBDC brought Ray Sidney-Smith, President and Web Strategist at W3 Consulting (and productivity geek!), to show you how to manage email overload! Watch and learn how to quickly and effectively triage your email inbox, maintain a responsive strategy for business email and build an email culture that fosters productivity…so you can get back to your business and not just “busy-ness!”
You will learn:
how to get your inbox to empty on a regular basis;
how to manage email responses that are important/urgent and important/not-urgent; and,
how to develop an email culture around your business that respects good email culture.
Launch Your Small Business Website in Under 24 Hours!
Are you thinking about launching your business website, or perhaps you are ready to build your blog? Do you believe that you do not have the time to get it done? Fear not! In Virginia SBDC’s next Beyond Google – Marketing and Managing on the Web Webinar Series, we have Ray Sidney-Smith, President and Web Strategist at W3 Consulting (https://w3cinc.com), will show you how to launch your website or blog in 24 hours! Join us and learn how to quickly and effective get your Web, Mobile and Social presence up and running for your Small Business!
You will learn:
to choose a great domain name (website address or “URL”) for your business (2 hours);
to select and set up a Web hosting account/service for your website (2 hours);
to create and prepare your content for the website/blog (8 hours);
to develop an Editorial Calendar for your website/blog (4 hours);
to test and create a Tweak-Maintenance Plan (TMP) for your website/blog (2 hours);
to plan out Analytics, Social Media & Mobile components and syndication (2 hours); and,
to set up analytics and security tools (4 hours).
= 24 hours!
Who should watch?
Small business owners, entrepreneurs, micropreneurs, solopreneurs
With all the technology available to businesses today, it’s easy to overlook the opportunities that bring efficiency and effectiveness to our day-to-day lives for ourselves but also our employees and contractors. One of those opportunities is telecommuting, the ability to remotely work from anywhere in the world. Many people associate telecommuting as working in your pajamas in bed or from a beach in San Juan! Remote working is so much more and we, as business owners, need to understand the positives and negatives that come from giving this great benefit and responsibility to our employees and contractors. In this Web seminar, Ray Sidney-Smith of W3 Consulting takes a Small Business through an overview of planning, implementation, review and maintenance of a telecommuting program for your organization.
What we will discuss in this Webinar:
Why telecommuting works? And, when it doesn’t? And, why Marissa Mayer of Yahoo! pulled the plug on their telecommuting program?
What does your telecommuting / remote working program need for it be effective?
What tools can help you make telecommuting manageable and, perhaps even, fun?
Google+, the Internet giant’s latest foray into social media, makes connecting on the Web more like connecting in the real world. Share your thoughts, links and photos/videos with the right circles. Use easy, spontaneous video chat to strike up conversations with as many as nine people at once. Get everyone on the same page with fast, simple group chat. Google+ at this time is quite similar to Facebook as there is a Home feed, “+1” instead of “Like,” comments, events, and other activities. But that’s only the surface. Google has launched more features for their Google+ platform that really makes this a dynamic business marketing and operations tool every Small Business should try. And, make no question of the fact that Google is determined to make sure that when Facebook wanes in popularity (and it will), they are there to meet consumers social, mobile and local Web needs. Your business needs to be there to catch the wave.
What we discuss:
*Overview of the Google+ social network’s major features for Small Business
*How to engage your target audience effectively on Google+
*How to set up a Google+ page for your Small Business (or product/service/brand), and set up managers.
Social Media Time Management for the Busy Entrepreneur [webinar] from Ray Sidney-Smith.
Social Media is here to stay, and it’s a powerful Small Business marketing medium. However, there are so many hours in the workday and Social Media can be overwhelming. Are you buried in blog posts and Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Twitter posts? Are you fearful of doing Social Media because you think you do not have time? Well, you don’t have to be. In this Webinar, Ray Sidney-Smith of W3 Consulting, a Web & Mobile strategy and training consultancy for Small Business, provides a practical, reasonable approach to Social Media strategy so that business owners can get social and still get the work done!
What we will discuss: *How do you determine the best Social Media strategy for your business so you can reduce unnecessary activities? *What methods and skills are available and needed to handle your Social Media without spending countless hours online? *What are the best Small Business tools to help you manage your Social Media effectively?
Who Needs an IT Department When You’ve Got Google?
Thursday, May 30, 2013 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM EDT
Wondering how online communication and collaboration tools might help your business? Discover how Google Apps for Business can help you be more productive. With Google Apps for Business, you’ll have anytime, anywhere access to web-based tools such as email, calendar, documents and more.
It costs you only $5 per user a month (or, $50 per user a year) where comparable solutions would cost you hundreds of dollars per month.
Additionally, there are so many ways to market your business through the plugins for Google Apps, you will definitely want to check out these tools. Most of all, Google Apps for Business gives you control over your digital assets so that information on your employee’s mobile devices and laptops inside/outside the office can be protected!
With Google Apps for Business, you get:
Business email – it’s Gmail, but better! Get custom email (@your_company.com), more storage, and access from anywhere-on the web, on your phone, and even offline.
Calendar – Use Google Calendar to centralize schedules in one company-wide calendar that’s accessible from anywhere. Overlay calendars to see when people are available, send invites, and plan events.
Documents, spreadsheets, and more – Share and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and forms with Google Docs. Employees always have access to the most up-to-date versions of their work files from anywhere.
Website(s) – Centralize important company information and manage projects with an internal website that will help keep your team organized and connected. Create sites as easily as editing a document. Keep important information centralized and secure. Use templates to create sites faster.
And, several other niche productivity products we’ll discuss on the Webinar!
After the main presentation, Ray Sidney-Smith of W3 Consulting will be on hand to answer your Google Apps for Business questions!
Register
Click here to register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/227773912
For more information please contact Tracy Nayar at [email protected]
Upcoming Webinar
Who Needs an IT Department When You’ve Got Google?
Disaster Planning in the Digital Age
TAG, You’re It!: Small Business Marketing Using Microsoft’s Mobile Scanning Technology
For more information please contact Tracy Nayar at [email protected]
Archived Webinars
Google to Great Webinar Series
Using Google to Be Found Part 1 – Google Sites
Using Google to Be Found Part 2 – Google Analytics
Who needs an IT Department When you’ve Got Google? – Google Apps
Google+
Overloaded Inbox? Google Has a Solution for You: Gmail
Find Your Customers,Using Google Search Competitors & Company
Google Documents: On Writing on the Web
Managing Your Time & Team Using Google Calendar
Google Documents: Spreadsheets & Forms
Google Documents: Presentations
Making Green ($) by Going Green on the Web
Managing Your Content Well (Using Google Reader)
Creating Infographics Easily With Marketing Impact
QR Code Marketing for Small Business: How It Works and What a Successful Strategy Looks Like
The Virginia SBDC Network is funded in part through George Mason University-Mason Enterprise Center and through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.
QR Code Marketing for Small Business: How It Works and What a Successful Strategy Looks Like
QR codes are all the rage in the mobile marketing world! And, while we think they’re a great complement to any Small Business marketing strategy, most business owners don’t know what QR codes are, how they can and should be incorporated into your mobile marketing strategy. QR Code Marketing for Small Business is not a how-to Webinar about designing QR codes (as W3 Consulting already hosted one and discussed in this blog post), but the strategy and tactics your business needs to make money from these black-and-white 2D barcodes! Service-based and product/retail businesses alike can really benefit from QR codes, so don’t think your business can’t benefit.
Join Ray Sidney-Smith, Digital Business Strategist and President of W3 Consulting, as he details what QR codes are, and how to include them in your marketing plan for greatest impact!
What is discussed:
*the basics of QR codes
*marketing strategies for product- and service-based businesses
*the marketing tactics that bring business to your business from QR codes
Who should watch:
*Small business owners, professionals, solopreneurs, micropreneurs and entrepreneurs
*Office managers
*Marketing Directors and Sales Executives
*Executive assistants, administrative assistants and secretaries
Creating Infographics Easily With Marketing Impact
If your Small Business wants to stand out in Social Media and beyond, infographics (or, information graphics) is the way you can make your content (subject matter expertise or thought leadership) do just that!
Infographics are everywhere these days. Postings arrive in our email inboxes to Facebook and Twitter feeds daily. So, why do we (as consumers) love the infographic? Well, most of that can be explained by brain science and the fact that we are all visual learners, taking in about 80% of our information by our senses of sight. Pair the visuals with great information about your business and you have an amazing way to draw people to your website. And, this means that you (as a marketer) should be using this marketing tour de force in your business.
What we discuss in this Webinar:
*marketing strategies for utilizing the infographic in product- and service-based businesses
*the data you should collect and include in your infographic
*how to create an infographic simply using tools any small business has access to on the Web
In this Web-based seminar, Ray Sidney-Smith, Digital Strategist at W3 Consulting, walks you step-by-step through creating stellar infographics easily, effectively and efficiently for your company.
Google has a lot riding on the success or failure of its newest social networking foray, Google+. Many have forgotten that they were early forecasters of how Social Media would monumentally shift the way consumers connected with one another personally and professionally when in 2004 (!) they purchased a small startup called Blogger. As you know, Blogger was a huge success (and still is) and not just for content-consuming customers but for Small Business owners looking for new ways to expose their products and services to the almighty search engine giant. Since then, they’ve had fits and starts with their social enterprises (most recently, Google Buzz). And, Google is not going to let Google+ fail. No way. No how. And, while I know it is and will continue to grow as a vital player in driving traffic for Small Business, I also know it could use some room for improvement. Here are my top seven things Google+ needs to add to their platform to succeed.
Mobile G+ Pages Admin
I have presented at seminars and lead workshops with thousands of business owners over the past few years and the last thing most business owners want is to be chained to their desk updating Social Media. We need to squeeze in communications among other things like hiring and leading our staff, servicing our customers, managing quality control, juggling our business’ finances, and handling the business of our personal lives. The proliferation of mobile computing has spawned a need for all social networks to make mobile interactivity of primary concern since many of us find the time not when we’re at our computers. Currently, with Google+, you can manage your Google+ Page from the mobile smartphone apps; you need to log out of your personal account and log back into the service and select your Google+ Page. For those of us who use Google+ professionally and personally, and manage Google+ Pages, this is time-consuming, cumbersome and a fun-killer! So, Google needs to make Google+’s Page mobile administration much easier. They can develop a separate smartphone app for Google+ Pages (such as Facebook’s Pages smartphone app), or they can just give you a separate tab within the Google+ app that switches you over to your G+ Page interface so you know you’re interacting as your business, product or brand…and not yourself.
Email Interactivity
Google+ Pages needs to have more email interactivity (i.e., email-to-post, email notifications of +1’s and comments, etc.). Many Small Business users (like myself) manage business marketing and operations primarily via email. It’s everywhere, easy and inexpensive to manage and market your company with email. Google+ needs to jump on the 80’s bandwagon and give us control similar to the way WordPress, Tumblr and many other blogging sites do it: (a) you get a private email address [email protected], (b) you keep that email address private and add it to your address book, then (c) whenever you want to post to your Google+ Page you simply email your text, photos, video, links and even an .ICS (event record) to your private email address and it posts to your G+ Page.
G+ Comments for Websites
We need Google+ Comments plugins for websites that want to replace their commenting system with Google+, especially with the advent of Google+ Sign-in. To-wit, Google recently added the Google+ Sign-in functionality which is great for Small Business website publishers to have more options outside of Facebook Connect and Sign in with Twitter. Google has a great product, Google Moderator, which they could easily wrap into Google+ and make it available for us to add to our websites so that visitors can easily use their Google credentials to log in and comment, and even vote comments up and down.
Centralized Messaging Platform Support
Google+ needs to become a centralized messaging platform on top of Google+ Hangouts and the Share field by adding text-messaging with emoticon support, email, IM, and voice messaging support. I’ll explain… I’ve lumped all these telecommunications features together because they are remnants of “technology past and present,” that we would all like to merge into just one inbox, our Google+ inbox, especially as business owners. I see this simply as adding the reverse (or “legacy”) functionality that Google currently has inside most of its software; you see your Google+ sharing tools at the top-right corner of your Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Voice, and so on. Why not have a button in the top-right corner of Google+ with access to your Google Voice, Google Chat (with access to your Facebook Chat, MSN Messenger, AOL’s AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, etc.) and Gmail? As well, it would be included while you’re in a Google+ Hangout. It would hover over your current screen when necessary and close up out-of-the-way when not needed. Think of the productive hours saved being able to interface with your telecommunications inboxes in one centralized space, and making it a part of your stream and even having a separate set of tabs so you could filter to those message types just in case you’re worried you’ll miss something in the volume of notifications.
Small Business DIY Developer Support
Expansion of access to the Google+ API for developers to extend the platform is really important. Ergo, make the API so brilliantly simple that, like the former Android App Inventor, Small Business owners can create their own Google+ applications using their own Google Apps for Business accounts and giving their customers access through their normal Google+ user profiles (or their Google+ Page in the case of B2B). For Small Business owners that don’t want to hire website programmers and developers to build their Web presence–whether on our own websites, mobile sites, smartphone apps or beyond–Google+ should empower us to make magic happen with WYSIWIG (“what you see is what you get”) tools. Power to the people!
More “Friction Sharing”
We need more Google+ “friction sharing” from more sources, not just Instant Upload photos on the Google+ mobile app. Facebook has decided that frictionless sharing is the way to go when it comes to sharing content into your “friends'” and fans’ Newsfeeds; however, Google+ takes the almost 180-degree approach by providing friction. So, you take some photos (and video) of a business events and you want to share that to your business colleagues, and Google+ automatically looks at your new photos and pushes them to a private, secure folder for you to select which you’d like to share via Google+. Brilliant! I want Google to add more places from which you can push content to this Instant Upload folder so you can share more of the great things you as a business are doing. Think about that great tweet you just read and want to share, that great podcast or YouTube video you listened to, that FourSquare check-in at that vendor retail location you enjoyed, or blog post comment you just wrote that’s both insightful and worth sharing to your audience.
Social Media Importer
The ability to import my Facebook timeline, Twitter feed, Memolane feed, LinkedIn history, etc., into Google+ so we can have a complete social chronology (historical record)–either automatically or as a manual process. The Google+ History API is a start but there should be a way for consumers and businesses to do this without an issue. As businesses start to learn how to put up consistent, valuable content in many different places, we should be able to centralize this data when one social network dips in value to us and we need to move. Google is a leader in this arena with The Data Liberation Front, and now they need to give the inverse power to us to make it easy to get things into our favorite, new social platform! As well, if this is automatic, this will cut down on having to remember to post on Google+. No matter where you post online, you can choose to collect those posts, filter and format appropriate to Google+ and push them into your Google+ Page stream. This may even be just an included function under the expanded Instant Upload.
BONUS – Google Analytics for Google+ Pages
Incorporate Google Analytics into the tool more tightly or push the data to Google Analytics for your Google+ Pages (like Ripples) so that I can view my Web presence marketing all in one place. This is rumored to be coming soon. Google has tried and failed and tried and failed quite a bit with Social Media in recent years. And, I think that’s why Google+ will champion not as the “next big it” social network, but the tried-and-true, seamlessly-connected network that Facebook seems to keep trying not to be with its constant interface and privacy-policy changes.
Okay, so I hope Google is listening! I want Google+ to be successful. Not everyone sees how powerful Google+ Pages are to Web presence marketing for Small Business, but believe me, it’s going to be more and more important as Google Author Rank takes hold and the tipping point of users on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ start to equalize (as it’s happening…oh…so…quickly!), and then Google+ becomes the de facto social network for Web publishers.
Google has a lot riding on the success or failure of its newest social networking foray, 