How local businesses can take advantage of the internet 4 8 10
- 1. Main Ideas /2009/10/please-welcome- For a chart of the top companies answering wwwdickdaviescom.html these questions, search Battelle Database What is the core creative idea that will of Intentions Chart - Version 2, Updated engage your audience? I have two free blogs, Sales Lab Posts for Commerce. Platforms are just amplification. http://blog.saleslabdc.com and Through The Browser, For an even grander view of tools you can The Internet is a network of computers. http://throughthebrowser.blogspot.com use, search The CMO’s Guide to: The The World Wide Web is a network of links. where I post twice a week. Figure a Social Landscape www.cmo.com/social- Do you want to control the platform, or good post is 5 paragraphs, ten media/cmos-guide-social-media-landscape control the conversation? sentences. Started last September, now I don’t agree with all the choices on either How you use the internet depends on what more than 85 posts. graphic, but my needs are not your needs. you want to do. Whatever you want to do, I have a free LinkedIn page, They showed me the bigger opportunity. chances are someone else has already www.linkedin.com/in/dickdavies, What’s a small business to do? done it. R&D means Research and My LinkedIn strategy is explained in Get email. Learn to use it. I favor Gmail as Duplicate. Web 2.0 in Three Paragraphs it is excellent quality and free. My Incoming Education http://throughthebrowser.blogspot.com Build a website you can fix yourself. Search Engine – Take the time to learn /2009/09/web-20-in-three- Websites get better, not finished. I favor how to use your chosen search engine. paragraphs.html. Google Apps Standard Edition as it is free I subscribe to nine Google blogs to When I change the status bar on my and requires no programming. learn how to make the most out of their LinkedIn page, I notify over 500 tools. Last night I saw Google If you’re a local retail business, become a LinkedIn contacts and automatically developers searching on Twitter. Yelp guru. Yelp shows where you are and notify my Twitter followers. what your customers think about you. I Email – The great communicator. You Syndication found my barber on Yelp and he’s the best can quickly reach most of the world To get my message out to my world, I am barber I have had in a decade. from your email. I have 6 accounts in active in 25 LinkedIn Groups and a half one Gmail window because Gmail has If you have a business-to-business dozen targeted Ning social networks. the best spam filter. operation, get a LinkedIn Page, get 500 When I write a blog post, I also post it to contacts and some recommendations. Blog Aggregator – Replaced my some groups. A full post goes to over newspaper. I use Google Reader, part I have 28 LinkedIn recommendations and I 80,000 people. See “Building Your Social of Gmail. I subscribe to 67 blogs. That like them so much I copied them to my Media Platform,” http://bit.ly/dvuDUG list is posted on Through The Browser. website so people I am not linked to can What Else Can You Do? see them. Getting Found John Battelle, one of the leaders of Web I have two free web sites, Join LinkedIn groups and other social 2.0 recently posted an update of his 10 year www.saleslabdc.com and networks that interest you. Start by old Database of Intentions. The first www.dickdavies.com. I am not a reading, then write. Let other people read concept of DBoI was what people asked programmer, and I built it in four hours what you write. Good feedback is search engines. He has expanded that to from a cold start. It comes with 50 free wonderful. “What I Want,” “What I Buy,” “Who I email accounts and other goodies. Am,” “Who I Know,” “What I’m Doing,” http://throughthebrowser.blogspot.com and Where I Am” (or “What’s close?”).
- 2. Other Thoughts “Hunh?” “Hunh, Hell! Do Something!” The new tools, the most advanced tools, that let you take advantage of the benefits SALES LAB INCORPORATED of the Internet are mostly free. WWW.SALESLABDC.COM These tools are “social,” so tell your friends what you are doing. Get their help and opinions. When you need help to do something, ask a search engine. The answers are there. The trick is which figuring out which question provides the right answer. When you are building your cyber-empire, keep a pad of paper handy. for ideas, How Local Businesses passwords, user names, and questions. Can Take Advantage When you get frustrated, take a break. The stress is because you get immediate Of The Internet response from a computer. Relax! Rejoice! A Cost-Conscious Workshop Resolve to have fun, don’t blame anyone or anything when you don’t understand, For Successful Small Businesses because you will be ashamed when you do understand. In 1995, on my first website, I realized, Arlington Business Council “Websites don’t get finished. They get better.” I liked that so much, I put that on April 8, 2010 the website. In The Mythical Man Month, Rick Brooks DICK DAVIES writes, “Software is the ultimate art form. SALES LAB INCORPORATED You can make anything.” DICKDAVIES @SALES LABDC.COM Learn anything today? Write a comment telling the best thing you learned, and see additional links previous comments at http://bit.ly/saleslab_internet_adv. Thank you! This work licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial United States License