Who’s Foursquare Mayor of your local business?  If you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, but would like to join the hottest, hippest new social networking tool for promoting a local business, read on. I’ll explain Foursquare – the still tiny but fast-growing mobile app phenomenon that could become the Twitter of 2010.

Foursquare combines elements of both Facebook and Twitter into a mobile social networking tool that lets users — mostly 20- and 30-somethings in urban areas — locate each other via mobile posts and join up at popular places.  It’s a friend-finder, electronic game and city guide all rolled into one, and thousands of small businesses nationwide are quickly jumping on board. Read the full entry

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Whether you are planning to sell online for the first time, or are tuning up and re-launching an existing e-commerce site, drawing visitors to your website is a challenge. Some traditional marketing strategies actually translate well to e-commerce, such as promoting to places where you know your customers congregate (either online or in the physical world). If you have a physical store, review what has worked there and morph those activities into your online efforts.

One of the biggest hurdles in online marketing is keeping visitors on your site long enough to buy something, says Jean Van Rensselar, a Chicago-based marketing expert. At a store, they’ve already made a time investment to be there and are less likely to walk out. Online, however, there’s no such investment so the quality of your site will make or break your online business. With a single click, potential customers can bolt. Here are some tips for marketing an online store and some errors to avoid: Read the full entry

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There’s a new small business startup boom sweeping across America. It’s not about high-tech, or venture capital, or any of the usual startup suspects we’ve seen in recent decades. This boom is all about “personal businesses” – the one-man or woman shops with no employees that are sprouting at a record rate, and often begin as hobbies.

This boom is about people with a passion for making something – dubbed the “Maker Movement” – armed with the smarts, low-cost startup tools and the drive to turn their hobby into a revenue stream. Today’s passion-driven hobbyists are tomorrow’s entrepreneurs – otherwise known as hobbypreneurs, who successfully combine their passion for a particular hobby or craft with pragmatic business smarts to create new revenue streams for themselves and their families.   Read the full entry

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As the U.S. economy continues to stumble along, small business owners are searching for low-cost and no-cost ways to promote their businesses and get their name in front of potential customers. “Even with talk about a recovering economy, businesses are still watching every penny,” says Drew Gerber, CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a boutique PR firm in North Carolina.  

PR is a perfect way for small business owners and profesionals to get attention and attract new customers. “Nothing has people knocking on your door like PR,” says Gerber. “Most companies know this, but not all have the budget to hire a PR firm. The good news is you don’t have to.” Read the full entry

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