Save the Date: Twitter Chat, October 20, About Branding

On Thursday, October 20, 2011 at 8 PM Eastern time I’ll be on a Twitter chat hosted and sponsored by FedEx Office®. And I’d love to have you join us! Bring your questions, bring your expertise, bring your advice for others in the small biz community.

The topic is going to be branding – how to brand your business online and off, cost effectively. We’ll also cover re-branding for those of you who think your business brand needs a facelift or just freshening up. We’ll talk about logos, business cards, cost effective strategies for print collaterals and signs, and much much more.

To participate in the chat, just log on to Twitter on October 20th at 8 pm Eastern and follow the hashtag #FedExSmallBiz. Be sure to use the same hashtag in your tweets, too, so others will know you are participating.

$100 Gift Card Giveaway

To sweeten the pot a bit, Small Business Trends will be doing a $100 gift card giveaway. The gift card will be good for services at a FedEx Office store near you. To be entered into the giveaway here’s what you need to do. Just give a Twitter sized tip to answer this question:

Q: Which social media profiles should go on your business card, and why?

Your answer needs to be no longer than 140 characters, and must include the hashtag: #FedExSmallBiz.

Please tweet your tip answering that question, prior to or during the chat. At the end of the chat I will choose the best tip to receive the gift card. To be eligible you must be located in the United States. The gift card is to be used at a FedEx Office near you. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. FedEx Office has no involvement in the selection of winners. This is sponsored by Small Business Trends.

Disclosure: FedEx Office compensated me to write this post and participate as a small business expert during the FedEx Office Boost Your Small Tweet Chat program. FedEx Office also provided the $100 gift card. The ideas in this blog post are mine and not ideas or advice from FedEx Office.

This Twitter chat is the third in the FedEx Office Boost Your Small Business Tweet Chat Series. We earlier published the press release about the chats – you can find more information there.

This Twitter chat is sponsored by FedEx Office. Questions will be asked by a representative from FedEx Office.

About the Author

Anita Campbell is the Founder of Small Business Trends which has been following trends in small businesses since 2003. She is host of the weekly Small Business Trends Radio Show, with over 400 interviews logged; and owner of BizSugar, a social media site for small businesses.

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Branding and Web Marketing For SMBs

Branding and Web marketing go hand in hand these days. Are you using both for your small business. Below you’ll find resources in these topics and a variety of other issues for SMBs.

Web Basics

The simple way to avoid social media failures. With all the new emerging technology especially in the area of social media, it has become difficult not to make mistakes and have those mistakes exposed. The only real way to avoid failure in your social media exposure is to openly admit you mistakes. In the end you and your business will be judged by your transparency, honest, and credibility. Harvard Business Review

Plan Website improvements for the holidays now. With the holiday season rapidly approaching, your website will experience far more traffic which can translate into higher sales volume. The secret is in keeping you website up to date. The small business owner must recognize the seasonal changes in shopping patterns and also the changes in interests as customers begin their search for gifts. This article attempts to organize steps for the small business owner to take. Bloomberg BusinessWeek

Branding & SEO

Base your brand storytelling on perceived benefits. In marketing there is an old saying, “facts tell, stories tell.” This is just as true today as it was years ago. Customers do not purchase your products or services based on all the figures and facts you throw at them. What sells them on your product is being to identify with the product. You accomplish this by getting the person to see themselves using and enjoying the product through a story. Marketing Zeus

The 9 best SEO tools for small businesses. To drive traffic to your site, you must find a way to get to the top of the search engine results page. When operating on a tight budget, you don’t have the money to spend on the best SEO tools. There are good offsite and on site optimization tools that can be utilized within budget restraints. Small Biz Bee

Innovation & Influence

Overcome fear of failure and spark innovation. Do you recognize the fear of failure? Do you see it in yourself? Have you allowed it to become prevalent in your small business? Are your people too afraid of failure that they fail to take any risk that might lead to innovation? Cultivation, even at the risk of failure, must be cultivated for an organization to grow and prosper. Corp!

6 tips to build inbound links. A website may be simply to create an online presence or its use may be to build a small online business. Regardless of its desired use, it must be found before it serves any purpose. to accomplish this goal, you must have a sound SEO plan. The use of off-page SEO , attracting inbound links to your site, can yield benefits, but it is difficult since to a large degree it is out of your control. The article presents six tips on building inbound links. Technorati

Leads & Engagement

6 lead generation strategies for local businesses. Many small businesses mistakenly believe they can rely on their reputation and referrals for their local market sales. In today’s marketplace, with Internet sales, good marketing, and people no longer putting loyalty and service ahead of price, small businesses that fail to take a new approach to marketing will not grow. There are ways for local small businesses to increase their leads and sales without spending a lot of money on marketing. Small Business Trends

Navigating the best path of success in engaging customers. To attract customers and then to hold on to them under these economic conditions and with all the new social media options can be challenging. Communications must be user-friendly and be flexible enough to satisfy the individual needs of each customer as well as being informative for the entire customer base. Corp!

Closing Thoughts

Information overload: what do you really need to measure? In today’s small business world with all the available technology, we have been able to provide more information and statistics about the business than ever before. This presents a difficulty in deciding which information you need or don’t need, and which information needs to be looked at in more depth. Three tips are provided to help you analyze the data. Open Forum

Is e-mail marketing still better than social media? Social media is the most popular online marketing tool these days, but is it really the best. Some out this post about wy e-mail marketing may still belong in your small business tool box. What do you think? Are you still a big e-mail user when it comes to spreading the word. FixCourse

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