Richmondenterprisesva's Blog

Revenue Generation via Widgets and Social Networks Become New Trend

richmondenterprisesva — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:56:50 +0000

January 13, 2009

Worklight recently released a report, entitled, “Web 2.0 for Business – Trends, Statistics and Recommendations for Businesses,” illustrating the ways companies are conjuring business opportunities by targeting widgets and Social Networks, which operate almost exclusively on Web 2.0 platforms.

Web 2.0 is the deemed awareness, in 2004, of a vast business potential by using the Internet medium, and the methods required to make it viable and sustainable.

The report reveals the major reasons for this mushrooming trend – an exponentially increasing Internet usage and dependency; a high percentage of people turning to social networks to communicate, recommend and seek advice for all sorts of stuff; widgets gaining in desktop prominence for continuous updates.

“Companies facing the current economic conditions are investing in engaging customers wherever they are already spending their time online,” said David Lavenda, vice president of marketing and product strategy at WorkLight (News – Alert).

Of the 221 million people contacted and surveyed in all age groups, 164 million claim to use the Internet ,while 73 percent of these users go online a lot. In the age group of 29 to 42 years, at least 65 percent shopped and banked online.

While in 2007, 36 percent of the adults using the digital social media connected to each other, in 2008, the number more than doubled. Out of the companies contacted, 87 percent of companies have Web 2.0 based technologies blue-printed and in the pipeline to seamlessly and unobtrusively merge with customer accessed content. 73 percent of companies are intent on keeping the customers happy through quality service, while 71 percent have goals set to net and maximize new clientele.

The report recommends that before a marketing widget reaches customers, it must first meet specific needs – a comprehensive study of customer requirements, type of usage and future needs; be security enabled and scalable with multi-platform Web 2.0 adaptability, including all types of Web phones; allow tracking and method of use once accessed by customers; and adhere to standard regulatory and policy requirements.

Using Social Media To Control Brand Management Crises

richmondenterprisesva — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:51:28 +0000

Jan 13, 2009 at 7:00pm ET by Chad Godfrey

For some companies, social media marketing is regarded as a fun engagement tool. Consequently, it’s often not a high-priority marketing initiative that gets the budget, attention, or credibility that other areas of marketing enjoy. However, social media marketing can provide serious value. In fact, a closer look at the scope and impact of social media marketing will reveal a tactic that can be quite effective at solving short-term brand management challenges.

Understanding the value

Social media marketing can be leveraged as a public relations tool during a brand crisis—think of it as a damage control device. In short, it can increase positive impressions around your brand and help you manage your online marketing messaging during a difficult time.

At its core, the “conversation” element of social media—supported by the branding aspects of organic or paid search campaigns—can improve brand engagement, and build a community of supporters. Moreover, listening to the concerns and feedback that customers provide in social media can help the brand better articulate its response to the crisis, and craft its most effective message to the public.

Making it work

Below is a 3-step plan to help you capitalize on the power of social media during a brand management crisis. However, before you take action, you must first step back to carefully, calmly, and thoroughly assess the situation at hand.

Step 1: Take inventory

The first step in this process is to assess the current social media initiatives underway at your organization. For example, does your company have a presence in social networking, video sites, or micro-blogging? If so, consider them to be your baseline social media assets for replacing negative press with positive branding. In addition, you will also want to have a good understanding of your other marketing assets, like optimized videos or search leveraged press releases, which can be used within social media. In essence, before you move forward with this plan, you want to find out what you already have to utilize.

Step 2: Hone message; select targets

Time matters in short-term brand management challenges. You can be sure that there will be little or no opportunity for a “do-over.” Given that, you not only need to pick the right sites, but it’s critical that you expose the right message. Granted, that may sound basic, but the efficacy of your social media initiatives will largely depend on whether or not the messaging is appropriately designed to engage the target audience and positively affect them. Below are three examples of large, well-known social media sites, and how you can tap into them for short-term brand management challenges:

Facebook: Functioning as a single point of contact for your customers and end-users alike, your Facebook page could be a crucial meeting center for updated information on the situation. The page can be used to host a new press release, product videos/pictures, an audio message from the CEO, and provide a link to your website. Naturally, all of these assets should be optimized for search. Ninety million Facebook users (comScore) is a large audience, and Facebook pages are crawlable by the search engines.

YouTube: With ownership of over one-third of online videos viewed in the US, YouTube has a massive reach with viral potential. You could use existing video assets, or even produce a short video to post. The optimized videos can be geo-targeted, and a PPC element is now in beta in YouTube that will allow you to bid your videos to the top of the results in a time when high visibility is absolutely crucial. In addition, comments on YouTube are also crawlable and could help produce additional SERP “real estate.”

Twitter: Twitter allows constant communication in real-time. Using your brand logo as an image, you can follow, and participate in, the conversation of your target market. Include links to your website in your “tweets” and try to direct people to your branded Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking sites/pages for further clarification about the situation. You might also want to set-up a “Tweet Beep” to get notification of relevant conversations, so you can immediately enter them and become a valuable resource.

Step 3: Align search

The convergence of search and social media is happening quickly. As the capabilities of these marketing strategies expand and overlap online, it is becoming increasingly necessary to coordinate the two. Given that, below are a few high-level search opportunities to be sure to address in conjunction with social media during a short-term brand management challenge:

Assets submitted to social media sites should be optimized for search
Be sure to supply links to your site within your keyword-centric social media contributions
PPC keywords that are relevant to the situation should be targeted, and should resolve to an appropriate company news landing page

Overall, these three steps should help you capitalize on the power of social media to combat a difficult brand management situation. However, there’s one more: You don’t need to wait for a crisis situation. Start embracing social media today, so if a brand crisis hits, you’ll be best positioned to quickly leverage its power to mitigate the damage.

http://searchengineland.com/social-media-a-great-tool-to-solve-short-term-brand-management-challenges-16057

City uses networking sites to connect with residents

richmondenterprisesva — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:47:13 +0000

The Olathe News (Olathe, KS) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Jan. 13–Facebook isn’t just for college students anymore.

Olathe’s Parks and Recreation Department recently joined the Facebook craze to debut a fan page on the popular social networking site. Using photos of department events and written posts, the department hopes to connect with Olathe residents and inform them of department programming, director Kevin Corbett said.

The site, www.facebook.com, debuted in 2004 as a way for Harvard University students to connect and interact via the Web. It then expanded to include other colleges and universities, high schools and companies before becoming available to anyone aged 13 and over with a valid e-mail address.

The Web site currently has more than 150 million active users worldwide.

Find Solutions for Enterprises, SMBs & Service Providers at the INTERNET TELEPHONY Conference and EXPO East, February 2-4, 2009. Miami, Florida.

“It’s a chance for people to get to know us in a different way,” Corbett said. “We’re trying to hit the different communication niches. We’ve had our page up for a couple weeks now and have close to 40 fans, including the mayor.”

The parks page is somewhat of a pilot program for Olathe, said city spokesman Tim Danneberg. The city has for several months been exploring alternative means of reaching residents in hopes of engaging them in city government.

“We recognized we don’t have the staff we once did to communicate,” Danneberg said. “The council has always felt that the more closely people follow their city government and the budget process and provide input, the better we operate.”

Since the popularity of Facebook has reached beyond the younger demographic, Danneberg said the city hopes to reach everyone in Olathe via these new outlets.

“We’ve always used traditional vehicles like working with the media, mailing our newsletter and e-mailing news briefs to subscribers,” he said. “It seems originally it was younger people (using Facebook), but it’s not just young kids who are using the service. I see my contemporaries, people’s parents. It’s been fascinating.”

Corbett said the parks department is a “department of choice,” unlike water or fire. Citizens have a choice in using parks programming and facilities, making the department’s marketing all the more important and thus making it the city’s logical first choice for a Facebook page, he said.

“We would almost say it’s nontraditional, especially in government use of these types of sites,” Corbett said. “We may be the first city in the area to use Facebook. I’m not sure.”

Overland Park created a MySpace account to market its Camp Inferno program last year, but does not currently use either social networking site to interact with residents, nor do Lenexa or Shawnee.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said the site has seen a significant increase in interest from government agencies, including departments of the federal government.

“We knew that if people connected through Facebook there would be a tremendous potential for it to influence all kinds of issues,” Schnitt said. “Certainly social, political and civic issues would be among them.

“Facebook offers government agencies a broad and engaged audience and provides ready-made tools to share information with this audience. It enables agencies to promote interactivity and participation easily.”

The parks department also has gone live with a MySpace page to promote its upcoming summer concert series. MySpace is similar to Facebook in that users create profiles to share information, connect with friends and colleagues and learn about area events.

Users can find video, photos and information about some of the artists who will perform this summer, Corbett said.

“We have one of the premiere summer concert series in the metro area and have national acts coming in,” he said. “MySpace is used a lot by the music world, and our page will allow people looking for concerts and music opportunities to find out.”

The city prepares to roll out another Facebook fan page for Mahaffie Farmstead & Stagecoach Stop, Corbett said. The parks department page will link to the Mahaffie page for cross-promotion.

Other departments that could soon debut on either site include development services or public works, Danneberg said.

“Residents clearly want to know about development in their area,” he said. “We could see if Facebook is a way to share about projects in the city. We could obviously use a public works page to inform about road construction projects and other initiatives that impact people. We certainly don’t want to limit it at this time.

“It’s about finding the resources to keep (the pages) updated to make sure the information we provide is the information that people want.”

In researching newer technologies and resources, the city considered Facebook, as well as MySpace, another social networking site, cost-effective ways to provide information.

Corbett said parks staff spends a minimal amount of time maintaining the page.

“The most significant time is spent building the page, but then it’s just adding content,” he said. “We look at it as being no different from managing the content on the city’s Web site.”

Facebook and MySpace accounts are free.

Corbett and Danneberg called the pages a “tool” for the city to engage residents.

“We’re doing anything and everything to get people involved, to get them to understand where their taxes are going and how important their input and involvement is to us being successful,” Danneberg said.

Fans of Olathe’s parks department can access the page at any time.

“It’s working for us 24 hours a day, without us doing anything,” Corbett said. “People are up there finding us. It’s just another piece of the puzzle.”

To visit the Parks and Recreation Department’s Facebook page, visit http://www.facebook.com/pages/Olathe-KS/City-of-Olathe-Parks-and-Recreation-Depa
rtment/50685711467.

To visit Olathe’s MySpace page, visit www.myspace.com/olathesummerconcertseries.

To see more of The Olathe News or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.olathedailynews.com/.

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2009/01/13/3911604.htm

Poll: Have you ever written a marketing plan?

richmondenterprisesva — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:41:43 +0000

Please choose the best answer…

Social Networking Still the #1 Growth Area in Online Marketing

richmondenterprisesva — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 05:19:22 +0000

January 12, 2009 – 9:37 am PDT – by Adam Ostrow 8 Comments

Some optimistic news today in a study dug up by eMarketer: lots of small businesses plan to increase their spending on social network marketing in 2009. In fact, 25% of the small businesses surveyed by Ad-ology Research indicated that they would increase spending on the medium this year, a higher percentage than any other marketing format.

Meanwhile, 33% of small businesses indicated that they would keep spending on social networking about the same, while only 5% reported that they plan to spend less than in the previous year. Surprisingly, while 37% of small businesses in the survey don’t use social networking at all, that’s a smaller percentage than any other medium, including email marketing, search engine marketing, and even just maintaining a company website.

What to make of the data? While certainly hopeful news for those that work in social media, overall, the numbers would seemingly point to what might be a better-than-expected year overall for businesses that depend on online marketing dollars. In all but a few areas (online video, podcasting, and mobile), small businesses indicate they are growing (or keeping the same) and not shrinking their marketing budgets.

Costs are certainly being cut elsewhere – the unemployment rate in the US is at a 16-year high – but maybe, just maybe, online marketing is a bit better off than other areas of the economy.

http://mashable.com/2009/01/12/social-networking-online-marketing/

Podclass Release – Richmond Enterprises

richmondenterprisesva — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 18:58:48 +0000

Richmond Enterprises announces the launch of the first podclass in a series of podcasts to teach small business owners how to create and execute a marketing plan while incorporating a social network marketing strategy. The podclasses take listeners through the steps of building a marketing plan while teaching basic marketing fundamental principles along the way. Included is a worksheet with exercises to stimulate critical thinking and begin documenting segments of the listener’s marketing plan.

Podclasses are found in iTunes by tying in Social Network Marketing or Richmond Enterprises using the search function in the upper right hand corner of the iTunes application. Listeners may also find the podclasses at http://richmondenterprisesva.podbean.com/

Richmond Enterprises is a privately owned company, located in Richmond, Virginia. Their mission: educating small business owners and entrepreneurs on successful business practices. In the process, the company focuses on building a community of small business owners who are dedicated to helping others find solutions to a variety of business needs. For more information, visit www.richmondenterprisesva.com

Social Bookmarking: A technique to Reach your Audience

richmondenterprisesva — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:41:56 +0000

Submitted by lillyjose2008@g… on January 7, 2009 – 3:17am. Science and Technology

BSN Stock Photo

Social bookmarking is a technique for Internet users to optimise, share, save and manage the lists of links. This technique allows the users to save links to web pages that they want to remember or share. As a matter of fact, sharing of websites within the Internet lets the users to go for the storage as well as searching of the Internet bookmarks.

Therefore, it can be said that bookmarking enables the users to reach millions of people who are surfing the Internet.

Usually, social bookmarking is done publicly but it can be saved or shared privately. It can be shared with specified people, groups, networks or combination of both public and private domains. Bookmarks can be viewed depending on categories, tags or via search engines.

Nowadays, most of the social bookmark services encourage Internet users to organize their bookmarks with the help of informal tags rather than traditional browser-based system of folders. Social service features categories, folders or combination of folders and tags. Moreover, this enables viewing the bookmarks as it is associated with a chosen tag and includes information on number of users who have bookmarked them.

Many social bookmarking services offer features such as web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This feature allows Internet users to become aware of latest bookmarks as they are saved, shared and tagged by other users. Apart from this, users also enjoy added extra features such as ratings, comments on bookmarks, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, import and export of bookmarks and other social network features.

In comparison with traditional automated resource location and classification software there are many advantages such as search engine spiders. The tag-based classification of Internet resources helps the users to understand the content as it is done by human beings. Apart from this, Internet users can find and bookmark the web pages that have not yet been noticed by the web spider.

Rohit is an Internet Marketing Consultants at Pitstop Media, a top internet marketing company that provide SEO services to clients of all sizes, from start-up to corporations. For any of your online marketing needs please contact the author at http://www.pitstopmedia.com

http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=node/22005

Web 2.0: a guide for small businesses

richmondenterprisesva — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:29:59 +0000

Keeping up to date with all the latest online developments can seem a daunting task. But don’t panic – here’s your handy guide to one of the newest buzzwords in town: web 2.0

guardian.co.uk

The jargon of the web can seem impenetrable, but web 2.0 is one of the simpler terms. It describes a new generation of websites that enable conversation and content sharing.

But when you get into the nitty gritty, it can be bewildering to decipher your Twitter from your Flickr and your Vimeo from your Delicious. So how do you work out what is relevant for your business?

Building an effective presence for your brand online these days requires far more than a brochure-style website. When you consider that the web is built on technology primarily designed for communication, it makes sense that the exchange of information should be two-way – and that’s where web 2.0 comes in.

Web 2.0 technologies include everything from blogging tools, messaging services (such as Twitter) and social networking sites (such as Facebook), through to content sharing services such as Flickr for photos and YouTube for video. Which of those you use depends on what is relevant for your business.

Helen Keegan, the MD and founder of UK mobile marketing agency, BeepMarketing, has found such tools invaluable. “I use web 2.0 technologies because, as a consultant, they build up my personal brand to be top of mind in people’s minds,” she says. “You need to strike a balance between your personal communication style and the audience you want to reach.”

Finding the right medium

Video might be very useful for some people but her style is more “wordy”, she explains. It’s important to find a channel which you’re comfortable with. It’s perhaps no co-incidence that David Cameron appears far more often on the Conservative party’s YouTube page than Gordon Brown.

Keegan’s own blog acts as a permanent CV, demonstrating her involvement in, and knowledge of, industry developments. The best corporate blogs do the same. Moo.com, the London-based web-to-print firm, has a fun and distinctive blog written by one of its employees (Denise). It’s a perfect manifestation of the kind of bright, sunny image that Moo wishes to convey, and shows the importance of presenting brands through real people and real personalities. If you try to force this sort of tone – indeed, any tone – you’ll go horribly wrong. You have to be yourself online.

Whether one person in your business is involved or many, a blog is a great way of communicating with your customers, potential customers and peers, and getting feedback from them. Remember: communication is a two-way thing. There’s no point in having a blog if you don’t allow people to comment on what you’ve said, or (almost as bad) don’t reply to some of those comments.

Talking about Twitter

Twitter is a fascinating tool that takes some getting used to, but has a large and growing group of fans who swear by it. It works rather like a very large, open version of an instant messenger programme. You can build up a list of interesting Twitterers to follow and some will start following you. You can post questions and interesting links, or give advice and discuss topical issues (in 140 characters or fewer. Brevity is crucial in the Twitterverse).

Twitter has around six million users, and there are hundreds of brands using the service including WholeFoods, JetBlue and Dell. Just as with blogging, Twitter provides a platform for you to talk to people with the same interests as you and build credibility for you and your work.

Keegan has found that the service is a lifeline if you work at home or in a small office – it can act as a virtual water cooler so you can chat with like-minded people about the issues of the day. “There are musicians, researchers, consultants and journalists using Twitter – it would be churlish to dismiss it as a geek tool,” she says. “We all have technology as a big part of what we do now.”

When we think of social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace usually leap to mind. They’re a great way of sharing photos, videos, links and news with your friends and family, but many people have found it tricky to juggle personal and professional identities on them. You never know who might see those drunken pictures of you with the crazy face paint at that music festival last summer. LinkedIn is a safer option, as it is structured specifically for the business community. It enables you to present your CV well and build up some useful contacts. It also comes with some handy recruitment tools – the site has seen one new member sign up every two seconds since the economic downturn began.

Keegan has overcome the reluctance many feel when dipping their toes into the social networking world: “I think women, in particular, can be more reluctant to reveal details of their personal lives online, though I gave up trying to keep a separation between work and home a long time ago. But it is becoming essential to have a LinkedIn profile … I’ve made between 50 and 10 contacts through the site.”

Don’t fake it

It is hard to generate any direct revenue from social media tools. What they do do, says Keegan, “is create a brand that is front of mind in people’s heads” and cut marketing budgets to a fraction. Above all, many web 2.0 tools are designed for one-to-one interaction, which is why the best examples of their deployment in the corporate world are from articulate, energetic individuals with the skills to write, engage and inspire interest. Hiding behind a brand name just doesn’t work.

There are some other pitfalls to avoid. Andy McLoughlin, the co-founder of Huddle.net, itself a web 2.0 service that provides a web-based collaborative tool for businesses, says: “Don’t do [the online equivalent of] a Gerald Ratner – go on TV and say your customers are bloody idiots.”

Keegan also has some words of warning: “Common mistakes on Facebook and Twitter are people being too pushy – only sending out links to their blog posts and not joining in the conversation.”

It’s also hugely important not to fake it. Don’t pretend to be something, or someone, you’re not. Some very large and (apparently) sophisticated companies have had their fingers burnt trying to fool the online community.

But McLoughlin is adamant that there are few firms who would not benefit from exploring these tools: “Take a long hard look at your business – you are probably spending a lot of time and resources trying to do all these things in a different way. It’s easy to be cynical, but if you’re a very small brand, social media is all you’ve got. Like anything, you will start to see the benefit once you’ve used it for a while.”

It takes skill, patience and no small amount of bravery, but putting yourself out there in the digital space could be the best thing you ever did. Just keep an open mind and enjoy the conversations. You’ll be amazed at what you learn about your industry and your brand.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cisco-connected-business/web-2-0-guide

The Best Things in Life Are Free

richmondenterprisesva — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:10:35 +0000

We show how you can start, run and grow your

business for, you guessed it, free

Posted January 6, 2009

Web design software: free
Online marketing campaign: free
Long-Distance calling: free
Running your small business for next to nothing: priceless.

Over the decades–heck, even centuries–philosophers, politicians, tycoons and other leaders have insisted that you can’t get something for nothing: “There’s no such thing as a free ride,” or “Nothing in life is free.” Well-known economist Milton Friedman once said, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.” Even Entrepreneur columnist Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad told him the same thing.

But in our evolving Web 2.0 world and with Google leading the way, the rules have changed: You can get something for nothing–and for entrepreneurs, that something can have a significant impact on their businesses. Today, the web is full of free tools to help entrepreneurs start, run and grow their businesses for next to nothing. It’ll just cost you some time and an internet connection.

Gary Vaynerchuk, co-founder of Wine Library, has been taking advantage of free business tools for nearly three years to grow his 11-year-old wine retail business. Using a combination of web-based tools, such as social networking, blogging and video, he’s taken his company to annual sales of $50 million. His success with these tools has even landed him two book deals and regular speaking engagements across the country. “Building brand equity and connecting with your consumers through these social tools has a global impact on your business and your brand,” says Vaynerchuk, 33, who launched Wine Library with his father, Sasha, 65.

Springfield, New Jersey-based Wine Library uses Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to notify its “friends” about daily specials, something it used to do solely through e-mail. Its Facebook presence includes a custom app called Ask Gary, where people can ask questions about wine. And the company keeps a regular video blog, Wine Library TV. “Viral aspects of your message explode once you use these tools,” says Vaynerchuk. “When I think about how much brand equity I have with Wine Library TV and how quickly it happened for [so little cost], the fact that I spent millions of dollars building the brand prior to using these tools makes me want to throw up.”

As Vaynerchuk has found, “customers appreciate the interaction,” says Mike Whaling, president of 30 Lines, a social media marketing company that helps businesses expand their brands’ online reach. “Traditionally, it was one way. It was shouting: brochures, white papers, advertisements. Now it’s much more focused on multimedia and engagement.” And whereas brochures and advertising of days past had a price tag, more and more of today’s tools are free.

But aside from the obvious (duh, it’s free), what does this surge of tools mean for small businesses? “It starts to level the playing field,” says Whaling. “It gives small businesses the opportunity to put themselves out there and really compete with the larger companies.”

“It allows a little guy to look like a big guy,” says Drew McLellan, owner and CEO of McLellan Marketing Group. “It makes a small business look very sophisticated.” For example, an entrepreneur can build a website easily with various blogging and web design options. A company can launch a targeted marketing campaign across numerous social networks. A business owner can manage calendars, clients and projects using different collaborative and project management software. All for free!

Alison Boris and Kathi Chandler, 38 and 31, respectively, have been capitalizing on free tools since nearly the inception of their Los Angeles-based online bag boutique, AllyKatStyle, in 2007. Like Vaynerchuk, they’ve created a MySpace page for their company. They also have profiles on Digg and StumbleUpon, which are community-centric content sharing sites, to drive traffic to allykatstyle.com. Outside of the popular social networking tools, they use QuantCast (embedded in the website) to monitor traffic, frequency, demographics, geographics and more, and Skype is their official business phone. Says Chandler, “They’re great grass-roots tools to drive traffic to the site and provide free advertising through bloggers and word-of-mouth.”

Communication/E-mail

Dimdim: open-source web conferencing application; free basic service
I Want Sandy: keeps track of daily details
Jott: voice-to-text service for creating notes, lists, e-mails and text messages; free basic service
Oovoo: video messaging, chatting and conferencing
Paltalk: group IM, chat and video call application
Plugoo: direct chatting with any blog or site visitor
YouSendIt: send files up to 2GB; free basic service

Storage

Adrive: 50GB of online storage and backup for all file types; free basic service
JZip: data compression utility
Mozy: 2GB of online, data and remote backup solutions; free basic service

Financial

BizEquity: company valuations
Mint: personal finance, money management, budget planning and financial planning software
MyBizHomepage: financial dashboard for small business QuickBooks users
QuickBooks: small-business accounting software; free download (Simple Start 2008)
Wesabe: financial advice, analysis and planning

Content/Media/Video

Audacity: open-source software for cross-platform audio recording
Blip.tv: video blogging, podcasting and video sharing service; free basic service
BlogTalkRadio: radio network for users to host their own shows
DropShots: video hosting and photo sharing
FeedBurner: media distribution services for blogs and RSS feeds
Fix My Movie: video enhancement service; free basic service
Paint.NET: image and photo editing software
Phixr: picture and photo editor
Seesmic: video conversation platform
SlideShare: share and embed slideshows, PowerPoints and PDFs into web pages
VideoSpin: video-editing software

Marketing/Networking/PR

Blogger: blog publishing tool
Craigslist: online classifieds and job postings network
CollectiveX: create social networking and collaboration sites for groups
Entrepreneur Connect: Entrepreneur’s social networking site
LinkedIn: business social networking site
Pligg: open-source, community-centric site for discovering, rating and sharing content
PolicyMap: geographic and demographic information system for creating custom maps, tables and charts; free basic service
YouNoodle: networking for startups and valuation with Startup Predictor
Your Pitch Sucks?: PR pitch reviewing and advising

Office Productivity/Organizational

Adobe Buzzword: collaborative word processor application
CutePDF Writer: PDF creator; free basic service
Dabble DB: create, manage and share online databases; free basic service
Doodle: schedule and coordinate meetings and other appointments
FreshBooks: invoicing, time-tracking and expense service; free basic service
Google Calendar: shareable calendar and schedule organizer
Google Docs: collaborative word processor and spreadsheet applications
OpenOffice.org: open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets and more
Stikkit: organization and reminder system that integrates with productivity applications
SurveyMonkey: create and publish custom online surveys; free basic service
ThinkFree Office: office productivity suite; free basic service
WuFoo: HTML form builder for creating interactive forms; free basic service
Zoho: office, productivity and collaboration applications

Project Management/Collaboration

LogMeIn: remotely support and access digital information; free basic service
ProjectStat.us: project management solution and updates
Project2Manage: collaborative project management solution
Remember the Milk: task management solution and to-do lists
Socialtext: wiki and website collaboration; free basic service
Team Task: collaborative project management and community website builder
Yugma: web meeting and collaboration service

Security

Adeona: open-source laptop tracking and recovery software
BitDefender Online Scanner: virus scanners; free basic service
ZoneAlarm: firewall protection from hackers and threats; free basic service

Web

Google Alerts: e-mail updates based on choice of query or topic
KickApps: platform of applications to integrate social features into a website
Microsoft Office Live Small Business: create a company website, domain and e-mail; free basic service
Synthasite: web hosting and building
Weebly: website and blog creator
Widgetbox: web widgets for various applications
Woopra: web tracking and analysis application; free basic service

http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/small-business-entrepreneurs/2009/01/06/the-best-things-in-life-are-free.html

CVB to host free e-marketing program

richmondenterprisesva — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:04:08 +0000

A clip from an article, January 7, 2009…

…Social media is not advertising, nor is it about selling a product or service. It’s about conversation and connects people together to share experiences, opinions, ideas and so forth.

Through the connections you establish, ongoing relationships develop with people around the globe that become a part of your realm, that have dozens if not hundreds of people in their realm.

What this means to your business is invaluable “word of mouth” promotion.