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Local Advertising: Devising an Online Strategy That Suits You

Experts squawk about Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, designing websites, and a whole litany of online and social media possibilities, but not all of them make sense for every single business. When it comes to local advertising, small business owners must seriously consider how to concentrate their efforts. While we all must utilize the internet and social media to some extent, what will be most effective for one owner, may be a waste of time for another. By reflecting on some key issues, devising a successful local advertising strategy becomes less about what everyone else says and more about what you truly want and need. Before you embark upon any online advertising initiatives, you must decide whether you are going to do it yourself, delegate someone in house, or out source it. All of these are perfectly valid options, but you need to consider whether you have the technical expertise, time, and money to support your decision, whatever it happens to be. Initially, it may be difficult for you to gauge your resources and exactly what this undertaking will require

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Local Advertising: Devising an Online Strategy That Suits You

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The Top 10 Reasons You Need a Blog

The term blog is short for web log, which started out meaning a personal online journal. Back in the late 1990s when blogs first emerged, they were usually filled with personal posts about the owner’s daily life, thoughts, and problems. They have since evolved into invaluable online marketing tools. Blogs are now a “must-have” resource for any online business.

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The Top 10 Reasons You Need a Blog

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Best Free Business Cloud Apps You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

The title might sound a bit presumptuous, but the writers at Cloud Nation worked hard to compile a list of cloud applications that most folks who don’t spend time in the cloud aren’t familiar with. All of these cloud hosted applications are free, but some of them do use the freemium mode of app distribution. In other words, the apps’ core features function forever for free, but extra premium features are available with subscription or other pay-as-you go plan. Mail Chimp : Are services like Constant Contact becoming too expensive?

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Best Free Business Cloud Apps You Probably Haven’t Heard Of

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Nokia profits take a big hit

Having once dominated the global cell phone market, Nokia Corp on Thursday posted a fourth-quarter net loss of €1.07 billion (

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Google launches Public Alerts

Maps just got smarter, as Mountain View announced the launch of Google Public Alerts. Google Maps users will now be able to see relevant ‘Public Alerts’ when using the popular tool, getting warning of weather, public safety and earthquake alerts. “Today marks the launch of a new Google Crisis Response project: Google Public Alerts, a platform designed to bring you relevant emergency alerts when and where you’re searching for them,” Public alerts engineer Steve Hakusa wrote on the Google blog . The tool is designed to alert users to things that might be happening in their area – tornado warnings, for example – and provide information about where and when the disaster might occur, as well as how severe the storm is expected to be and where resources can be found to help. “The Google Crisis Response team works on providing critical emergency information during crises. Our goal is to surface emergency information through the online tools you use everyday, when that information is relevant and useful,” Hakusa said. Users can search directly on Google maps for specific warnings in their area, or alternatively, can go directly to the Public Alerts Page, where users can find a list of current emergency warnings from around the world. Warnings are displayed as hotspots which users can hover over or click to view more information. “We’re learning as we go and we’re working hard to continuously improve the range and relevance of the content you see,” Hakusa said of the newly-launched service

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Google launches Public Alerts

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7 Ways to Keep Your Inbound Marketing in Check – A SPN Exclusive Article

The three major components of inbound marketing are social media marketing, content marketing and SEO. Each of those campaigns requires hours of planning and implementation, constant monitoring and consistent progress. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the amount of work that goes into a strong inbound marketing campaign, but that doesn’t mean you have to struggle to keep your head above the water. Here are 7 tips for keeping your inbound marketing campaign from running away from you: Think twice before you post/tweet/update/share. Nothing published on the Internet can ever really be deleted. Even supposedly private communications like internal emails can end up published somewhere. Before you share/post/tweet something take a few seconds and think about how it could potentially impact your brand

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7 Ways to Keep Your Inbound Marketing in Check – A SPN Exclusive Article

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How To Measure The Return On Investment For Social Media In Marketing

“ROI on Social Media? What bloody ROI?” It’s only the first week of January 2012 and already I’m hearing the same refrain as 2011! “How do we calculate the ROI on social media in marketing?” When you begin using social media in your marketing strategy or as a stand alone campaign, it is hard to determine how those numbers of followers and ‘likers’ stack up against delivery of a return on investment. We have clients who ask us this regularly so here’s some clarity for you. Measuring social media ROI is very difficult for a few reasons. The first is that it is very hard to use social media trackers for individual sales and the second is that social media is not a direct sales channel, it’s a relationship marketing tool.

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How To Measure The Return On Investment For Social Media In Marketing

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10 Ways to Maximize the Power of Your About Us Page

If you own an online business, you need to provide an About Us page. Unfortunately, many sites neglect to give this page the attention it needs and deserves. Many people do not realize the importance of an effective About Us page. Your About Us page has the distinct purpose of letting people get to know your company, which will help build the foundation of trust and respect that is needed for a successful online business. For certain businesses, the About Us page can also be used for recruiting new employees, sales reps, etc.

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10 Ways to Maximize the Power of Your About Us Page

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Using Customer Service To Get Social Media Marketing Benefits

Social media marketing is more than just spreading a marketing message through social networking tools like Twitter or Facebook. It is about brand management and defense on those same social tools, and turning that defense into marketing opportunities. In many cases, social media marketing will often transcend the typical marketing communication messages and campaigns, because it comes from sources other than the marketing department. The customer service department is an unlikely place for social media marketing to happen, but because of the public nature of social networks, it can be a great place for brand defense and word of mouth marketing to happen, all because the customer service department is on the ball and handling customer complaints. Here is an example of how social media marketing usually works. 1) A customer has a complaint with their satellite service provider. They send a tweet out, which is seen by their 750 followers: “Channel 213 is out, and right before the big game. Stupid satellite company. Been sitting on hold for past 30 minutes.” 2) The satellite company is monitoring Twitter, and they respond with a message of apology and an offer to help.

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Using Customer Service To Get Social Media Marketing Benefits

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Endless Articles Ideas: What Everyone Wants to Read

Have freezer eye? You know, you stare at the computer long enough hoping to figure out which article ideas to write about only to have your eyes freeze. You ask yourself, “What do visitors want to read? What do I like writing about? What have I already written? What pertains to my website or blog? What will help sales? What will help people sign up for my newsletter?” And the main question most people ask, “What am I an expert on so I feel confident enough to write about?”, so on and so on

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Endless Articles Ideas: What Everyone Wants to Read

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