Tweak Your Biz » Global » 10 More Links You May Have Missed, But Shouldn’t!

10 More Links You May Have Missed, But Shouldn’t!

by Niall Devitt on April 3rd, 2011
29 Comments



1. # Get your brand in front of our two quickly growing small business communities, Bloggertone and BizSugar. Sponsor the SugarTone business blogging contest, read this for more information.

2. # Elaine Rogers of Seefin Coaching tells us about Bloggertone Meetup#2 and when you build a relationship online, to actually meet offline is such a bonus (with thanks to Frederique Murphy).

3. # Are you keeping Twitter as cost-effective as possible? If not, here’s ’5 Ways SMBs Can Get More From Twitter’, nice post from Lisa Barone at Small Business Trends.

4. # Critical! Bloggertoner, Helen Cousins from Xcel Business Solutions examines pricing strategy in her very first post ‘Pricing For Profit. Part 1′.

5. # From May 25th, a EU wide privacy directive comes into effect that may threaten how Google analytics works. Beatrice Whelan of Web Design Kildare – Beatrice Whelan discusses the likely implications.

6. # Be Honest with Yourself! Has Social Media Reduced Your Professional Productivity? (from a cool new blog http://connorkeppel.com/)

7. # Great examples! Inc. Magazine looks at ‘20 Awesome Facebook Fan Pages‘ (thanks to Small Business Trends for the share).

8. # How quickly are the Fortune 500 companies embracing blogging and social media?

9. # ’100 Of The Best Social Media Blog Posts So Far In 2011′, massive round up from Niall at Simply Zesty!

10. # Do you think social media doesn’t breed sales?  Find out ‘How Social Media Grew Foiled Cupcakes Sales by 90%!’ (Thanks to BizSugar).

(Image: http://www.businessesgrow.com)



Category: Business articles reviews

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The Author:

Niall Devitt is a doer, not a talker when it comes to social media. Niall advises organisations how to plan, design and implement social media strategies that generate real business returns.  Niall is Chief Digital Strategist & Founder at the Ahain Group, an independent, ideas-led social business consultancy with experience of working with all types of clients and sectors– from large blue-chip multinationals to the 1 SMEs. Download our industry specific and researched social business reports. In 2009, Niall co-founded TweakYourBiz.com (formally Bloggertone.com) an international, business community and online publication. http://www.ahaingroup.com/

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  • http://twitter.com/fredchannel Fred

    Old school! love the post Derbhile. Haven’t tried it really but it sounds something simple to do.
    You could even come up with a specific hahstag or domain to measure accurately the traffic that radio stations contributed with :)

  • http://www.btbtraining.com/blog Niall Devitt

    Hi Derbhile, nice overview! I think people suffer from the perception that it is difficult to get on radio, well at least on the national stations. Is this fair or overstated in your opinion?

  • http://www.writewordseditorial.ie Derbhile

    I can’t lie – getting into the press can be difficult. A phone call can be more effective than a press release if your story is time sensitive. And plugging into the style of the programme also increases your chances.

  • Lorna Sixsmith

    Great post Derbhile, I have been on local radio quite a few times now and national radio once for all of 60 seconds but I agree, it is a great way to keep your profile up and get business.

  • http://twitter.com/NoIPcom No-IP

    Like real estate agents say, it’s all about location, location, location and this rings true with domain names as well! Great article, hopefully many people will learn from your costly mistake!

  • http://GrowMap.com Gail Gardner

    Ah, if we could all simply see the future. :-) On a similar note, when you’re buying that all-important domain be sure to claim at a minimum your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts and the same username in any communities you frequent. If they’re not available you might even want to consider a different domain name so they can all match. nnIf you’re really serious there is a way to claim your preferred username across hundreds of social networks all at once. Having matching usernames gets you recommended and followed much faster because remembering one is simple but having to remember where you are which username is more work than most busy social savvy folks will do.

  • Stratico

    Having a business strategy is also about allowing strategies to emerge (business happens when making other plans) in a way that adds to the original strategy. Sometimes things evolve dependent on which customers ‘pull’ but generally a good level of initial research togethewr with souns strategic planning will ensure faster more effective and efficient strategic development. A strategic consult at the front end may have been cheaper than the domain purchase down stream.

  • Steve Waterhouse

    What a great and fun article. Technology can be a bit overwhelming at times. It’s great to have advice like yours and to know we aren’t all alone out there trying to figure all this stuff out. Thanks!!

  • Fiona Stolze

    Thanks Anita for sharing this story. I would have had no idea either and may have done exactly the same thing. I love your honesty. It’s given me food for thought about purchasing more domain names to protect my art brand. nn

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Niall, glad to finally join you guys over here. You’ve been such wonderful supporters of BizSugar.nnWell if I can give people hope, I’m glad. I have plenty more mistakes where those came from [grin]. Maybe not ones so easy to quantify, but there are enough of them.nn- Anitann

  • Anonymous

    Welcome to Bloggertone, Anita! nnHearing your story really illustrates how important it is to choose and acquire your desired domain name. You’ve got me thinking about what I might need to evaluate as I go forward. When you’re starting off (or starting something new), it can be easy to overlook something such as our presence online is another important piece of our strategic plan.

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Fred, Yes, the confusion factor is certainly significant. nnIn my case the organization that had the domain (a non-profit organization involved with small biz with a completely different name) didn’t actually do anything useful with the domain. They had it in a strange redirect loop that for years led to one of those “file directory” pages. That was a bit of luck for me, because visitors quickly realized they were in the wrong place. The confusion factor would have been far worse if their organization had had the same name and sent visitors to a site with the same name. nnSo I think it was good foresight on your part to recommend a re-branding.nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Steve, Luckily I like to laugh and keep a sense of humor. If I didn’t I’d sit down and cry like a baby over stuff like this – LOL. nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Fiona, I would say for art that domain names can be especially important, particularly if you have unique names. It’s definitely a good idea to think ahead on those things. ;) nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Gail! That’s a great point about securing your brand for social sites. One service that will check for you is http://knowem.com. There is another service that does that, too — someone else may know the name of that service.nn– Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Travis, yes, indeed, it’s also important to get those other extensions. Great point. At least the key extensions that are popular in your country.nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi John, have you done much with typos and misspellings? I haven’t (other than plurals and singulars). But a very common misspelling might be worth it….nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Garry, I like that: “saved me from myself.” Now if we could all just get saved every single time we were about to step off a cliff or something….. :-) nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Scott, so true on the economics. As domain names go, given some of the numbers I’ve heard through the years, I suppose I actually got off easy.nn- Anita

  • Anonymous

    Hi Anita. As a long time writer on Bloggertone, I’d like to welcome you, on your first post here. Thanks for sharing your story which is a great lesson that we can all learn from.

  • http://www.encouragingexcellence.ie/ Mairu00e9ad Kelly

    Hi Anita, welcome to Bloggertone. What a very honest and insightful first post. nnWhen I first bought my domain name the .com wasn’t available (owned by a school somewhere in Africa) and became available April 2010, unfortunately I was away at the time and I missed the slot. It was bought by someone who offered it to me for $10,000 and I refused to bite. He badgered me for a month until I told him to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine, that I would NEVER pay more than the normal asking price for it as I had the .ie, .org, .net, .co.uk domains and .com really wasn’t that important to me since most of my business was local.nnLike some of the other replies on here, it has been suggested that I trade as my own name too, however that would be really difficult to sell if I ever wanted to, plus as a generic Irish name is is difficult for the average Irish person to spell, never mind the rest of the world.nnMis-takes are the things we do so that we can learn how to do it correctly the next time – an essential part of life. Unfortunately all too often we beat ourselves up over them unnecessarily.

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Mairead, nnTalk about extortion!!! Good for you for not caving in.nnI also have my name as a domain and used it when I was consulting. Now I have it mainly for reputation management and to make sure my name comes up in search engines. So it’s not a bad strategy to at least have the domain name for your own name, even if you use a company name to conduct business under. nn- Anitan

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Well hello, Frank! Thanks for the welcome. You’re all so friendly here. :-) nn- Anita

  • http://twitter.com/smallbiztrends Anita Campbell

    Hi Elli, nnYes, you’ve got it right — it’s all too easy to overlook something. nnAnd really, it’s that way with a lot of things when you have your own business and you have 30 balls in the air at any given time. At least one thing is bound to fall on the floor — I always hope whatever I drop won’t be TOO critical or TOO expensive. nnThanks for the welcome!nn- Anita

  • http://www.seefincoaching.com/blog Elaine Rogers

    Hi Anita, a hearty welcome to Bloggertone from another Bloggertoner!!nnA great post, and a great reminder for any one managing an online identity, whether personal or professional.nI saw on a programme recently here in Ireland, that expectant parents are now considering the name of their unborn child, depending on whether the domain is available :) – thumbs up for the web savvy parents!!nnI have 2 very different businesses online so far, and very carefully checked the domains and the extensions before naming the businesses (both location dependent).nnTo be honest, I think it will be one of the more obvious “first tasks” to do when looking to start a business. Anyone ignoring online presence these days is naive, in my opinion (even if they really think they will never be online).nnI agree also it’s important to try and keep similar usernames/avatars when signing up to SM sites.

  • http://www.connorkeppel.com Connor Keppel

    Thanks for plugging the blog Niall :)

  • http://www.bagful.net/ window hosting india

    Hello

    Good One

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  • http://www.dreamzdesignco.com/services/domain-services private domain name

    The value of domain names really sure it would be a good idea it’s what I think might work well…

  • Liran Hirschkorn

    Yes – pricing is based on age, health, and also occupation – so an occupation with more risk would have a higher premium.

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