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5 Things I Didn’t Know About LinkedIn… Until Now

March 3rd, 2010 by Erin Posted in Stature Projects | No Comments »

Perhaps I’ve been living in the dark ages, but only now have I discovered what LinkedIn can do.

Sick of the mindless nonsense on Facebook (and endless FarmVille notifications from friends), I decided the other week to revisit my LinkedIn account.  I’m glad I did.

LinkedIn really is an extraordinary site – and one that seems to have stood the test of time in the world of professional social networking. Sure LinkedIn is slow at times, but its connections, recommendations, jobs features are all great stuff.

Now as I dig deeper into LinkedIn’s world, I’m discovering my profile can be so much more than just a glorified resume.

Here are five things I didn’t know about LinkedIn… until now.

1. Video. Add video to your profile with LinkedIn’s video application. Reel Social Media has step-by-step instructions for those who are technically-challenged. This is a great feature for anyone who wants to showcase speeches, presentations. It can even be an unique way to add recommendations.

2. Tag your contacts. Give your contacts unique labels so you can remember who they are and where you met.

3. Reorder your profile to highlight your best attributes. Again, don’t think of your profile as a resume. Think of it as a mirror image of yourself.  LinkedIn just introduced this new reordering feature and there’s a handy video guide on the company blog.

4. Who’s viewed your profile? Stroke your ego and stay on top of who’s paying attention to YOU. LinkedIn let’s you see who’s viewed your profile, a feature the other guys don’t have – yet.

5. Get traffic. This may seem like a no-brainer, but people don’t take advantage of this feature as much as they should. Everyone should use LinkedIn to drive more traffic – especially targeted traffic – to their website. Do this by first linking yourself to people you know, then by answering the questions of people you don’t.  Also, join and participate in groups that cater to your niche.

Admittedly, I’ve only begun to scratch the surface at LinkedIn. I’ve spent way too much time away.

I’m back now and excited to see what the site can really do.


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Top Ten Small Business Trends In 2010

January 1st, 2010 by Erin Posted in Stature Projects | No Comments »

As 2010 comes screaming toward us, so do the traditional predictions for the new year and beyond.

These new year predictions have almost become obligatory. Many of them are stale and cliche – but we expect them and we LOVE to read them.

Considering this was a bumpy year, especially for small business, I wanted to jump on the prediction bandwagon as well.

What will 2010 bring to small businesses?

More money? Green responsibility?

Since I don’t have a crystal ball, I’ve turned to the experts.

Small business expert and USA Today columnist Steve Strauss offers this look at the top ten small business trends we can expect in 2010.

And guess what?

This news is actually insightful!

The New Frugality

A variety of factors have coalesced to create an era of frugality – the bad economy, stubbornly high unemployment rates, and the burst of the housing bubble to name just a few.

The upshot is that people are spending less, saving more, and are looking for bargains. For the small business person, this has several ramifications: First, as you well know, it’s tougher to get people to spend, and spend more. That isn’t going away any time soon. Secondly, you have to give people what they want, and what they want are bargains.

The New Employee

This trend is another directly related to the changing and challenging economy. More and more, employees are shifting, or are being shifted, to part-time or independent contract status. It might be a forced furlough or a forced downsizing, but whatever the case, full-time employment with full-time benefits is becoming harder and harder to find, and to offer.

It is not hard to understand why employers are doing this – it saves money – but it also creates a far less satisfied workforce. I know, “they should be happy they have a job!” — but really, can’t we begin to raise the bar again here soon?

Less Money, More Responsibility

The fact of the matter is that more and more small business will have to learn to get by on less, even while their financial burden grows. There are a variety of factors at play here again, and all are equally culpable: Fewer customers with less to spend, banks who won’t make loans, tighter credit generally, the end of the home equity ATM, etc.

Yet, while the trend is less money to go around (although it will certainly be better than 2009), the financial demands on small business continue to grow. Thankfully, Congress tried to do something about out-of-control health care costs for instance, but if it helps (debatable, hopefully) it won’t be for several years.

Welcome the Era of Hyper-Connectivity

Whereas your online life and brand used to consist of independent activities that were essentially stand-alone silos, the accelerating trend is towards using a variety of tools to create an e-interconnectedness. As explained by Adam Ostrow Editor-in-Chief of Mashable, it is easy, and smart and important, to now connect your blog to you Facebook account, which can also connect to your Twitter account, as well as MySpace, YouTube and more. Every time you update your blog for instance, your content automatically filters across your interconnected online world.

The opportunity and challenge is that you can increase your online presence multi-fold. Do it right and prosper, do it wrong and don’t.

Green Opportunities

The failure to reach any sort of comprehensive, legally binding, climate agreement in Copenhagen is further proof that Trend No. 6 is real and growing: There will continue to be opportunities galore in the eco-sphere for the entrepreneur. Governments may not be able to create green energy or zero emission cars, but the sharp business person can. There is and will continue be a growing and lucrative market for products that heal the environment.

Social Media Grows Up

Have you noticed that “social media” is a term that doesn’t really describe the experience that well anymore? Yes its social, and yes its media, but for business it has become so much more than that. Tapping, nay, mastering, social media is one of the hottest of all online trends:

• Everyone from Jet Blue to Comcast has turned to Twitter as a customer service tool.
• Companies like Whole Foods and Popeys increasingly use it to get feedback, post company news, etc.
• Big business has discovered what many small businesses already know: Facebook is a great place to advertise. “Facebook” in fact was the most searched term in 2009. (Source: Experian Hitwise)

Going Local

Consumers are increasingly looking for a local angle when looking where to spend their hard-earned dollar. Example: The explosion of farmers markets across the country. According to Entrepreneur, “there are almost 5,000 farmers markets across the country, the result of more than 5% annual growth for the past five years.”

Additionally, with people staying closer to home right now because of the economy, with folks focused ever more on community and family, and with the green ethos growing, home is where the heart (and dollar) is.

Sharing vs. Shared Experiences:

According to a recent NPR podcast, we used to share national experiences. The nightly news was a shared ritual for instance. The OJ Simpson trial was a shared experience, the same with Vietnam, and so on.

But that is changing, for two reasons. The first is the fragmentation of the media. With innumerable news outlets, websites, cable channels, mobile options and the like, the opportunity to create shared experiences is diminishing. We are all not watching or experiencing the same thing nearly as much.

Secondly, with the advent of easy to generate user-created content, sharing experiences and opinions is becoming ever more prevalent. YouTube, blogs, Facebook,Yelp, email even, all contribute to both the media fragmentation as well as the sharing culture.

For the small business person, it is vital to realize that 1) people look for, and increasingly expect, the personal, and 2) small, localized, immediate user-created media are where the eyeballs are headed.

Mobile Mania

Maybe the only marketing trend that is hotter than social media is mobile mania. Why? Maybe because there are four-times more cellphones than PCs worldwide, or because they are the favorite product of Gen Y, or because in 2000, there were almost no texts sent but this year, 130 billion texts will be sent amonth, and only 23% of those will come from my daughters.

So yes, mobile marketing is exploding. Whether it is creating the Next Big App, offering customers a real-time mobile coupon, or creating a text marketing campaign, in 2010 there will be mobile options galore for small business.

Even better maybe: The variety of ways to measure the success of your mobile campaign. According to the Mobile Marketing Association, they will include: “The number of eyeballs, shakes and finger swipes. The number of blogs, articles, tweets and diggs. The number of acquisitions, conversions, calls, responses or purchases. Total basket size, consumer recall, loyalty and recommendations. Check-ins on foursquare and check-outs on Amazon.”

It is a new world indeed.

The Start-Up Economy

Last year, 2009, my top trend was entitled “Economic Tumult,” and tumultuous it indeed turned out to be; the Great Recession is great in all the wrong ways.

But this year, while the state of the economy will continue to be the most significant trend effecting small business, the outlook is both brighter and calmer. It is calmer because things are slowly getting back to, if not normal, at least something recognizable. And it is brighter because out of the rubble, a new, vital, innovative start-up economy is being born.

We have entered the era of small business. Whereas GM president Charles Wilson once said “What’s good for the country is good for GM, and vice versa,” it can now safely be said that what is good for small business is good for the country. Consider these statistics.

Small businesses now

• Number almost 30 million
• Employ more than half of all workers
• Constitute 99.7% of all employers
• Constitute 97% of all exporters
• Create the majority of business innovations
(Source: U.S. Small Business Administration Office of Advocacy, 2009)

With 10% unemployment for as far as the eye can see, with the unemployed running out of benefits, and with benefits not what they once were for the employed, start-ups of all shapes and sizes are taking root: One person shops, home-based businesses, part-time ventures, online enterprises, high tech companies – you name it. These are the folks who, with their creative energy, drive, ingenuity, and hard work will be leading us out of this anything but great recession.

Here’s 2010!

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Google Fading Home Page

October 29th, 2009 by Gregory Silvano Posted in Stature Projects | No Comments »

Google has a new home page today.  When the page loads you see nothing but the Google logo and the search box.  No buttons, no links – nothing.

When you move your mouse, the rest of the page fades into view.

I kind of like it.  It’s an interesting way to emphasize the important parts of your site.  When a visitor first sees your home page, only show the important things.  When the mouse moves anywhere on the page, the rest of the design/fluff fades in.  You can probably only get away with this if you’re Google, but it’s kind of cool.

 

Introducing LSB Advertising

September 30th, 2009 by Gregory Silvano Posted in Stature Projects | No Comments »

LSB Advertising was formed for the sole purpose of bringing some of our most requested and technically advanced web presence methodology to Small Business.  With Stature Software in the background, LSB Advertising can offer advanced websites and email hosting with the ability to add custom features and development as needed.

 

Bravo, FedEx

September 30th, 2009 by Gregory Silvano Posted in Stature Projects | No Comments »

Anybody with kids will appreciate this story:  FedEx Flies Terminally Ill Girl Home

 

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