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One-Hour Web-inizing: Simple Pages for the Mini-Business
I'm hitting the road today for a mini-business study. I'm going to be going through small rural Midwest towns looking for businesses without a web presence.
I believe it's so easy and inexpensive to get on the web, at least with a single page and a domain name, that there is no longer an excuse not to be "on the web." A few years ago, a study came out saying 30% of small businesses were yet on their own web page. I hope that's changed, but I'm not so sure — especially in rural areas.
Merchant's Circle offers a great solution (one every small business should take advantage of in addition to their own site). And there is Google Local that can help support a web "presence." But what of a small company's own web presence?
Well, I'll be traveling around small town squares with my li'l red wagon (and laptop) building one-hour web pages and testing out theories. Almost like One-Hour Web-inizing.
Update: We just did two tests. The first test, it took an hour to put up a single web page with store info, contact, custom banner, a bit of content on history and present offerings, and two photos (inside and outside). The second test was a simpler page — took 25 minutes.
Update II: Success! Of the dozen or so businesses we approached, a handful weren't on the web or didn't care to be there. A signal to me there is still a need for affordable solutions to the mini-businesses or small rural companies. We also met with Susie at Pappy's Antique Mall – our first web-inizing customer. In and Out in an Hour (or so). The one-hour webinizing might become a weekly thing (I dig the people and the food on the back roads. Lots of gems!)
Video clips at eleven?
Photo on Flickr by Gavin St. Ours
Using Archives to Create a Slide Deck — and a Speaking Career
If you've been blogging for awhile, you have lots of great content to pull from to make a presentation deck for "lunch-and-learn" types of speaking engagements. You can also create the "decks" to share on SlideShare or individual slides on Flickr by using an image and the Post Headline or "money quote" within a post.
Once you've repurposed the content for use online, contact your local chambers of commerce, and other professional development associations to ask if they are looking for speakers. Just 10-20 slides will give you a great foundation for a presentation — and who knows, you may just kick-off a side source of income speaking, or better yet, create a new customer base — all by repurposing content already published on your blog.
I recently did this exercise and forgot that I had written a series on "Fears of Blogging" several years ago. I'm turning that into a new slide deck and presentation.
One other thing you can do with your archives, especially if you've been blogging since pre-Twitter days, is to share those archives occasionally on Twitter – maybe with a "From the Archives" within the tweet.
Give it a shot. Let me know how it works out for you.
Tourism Currents is a Learning Resource For Your Small Town (and Business)
One industry hottest (and getting hotter) for social media and the relationships that can be forged is the Tourism Industry — especially in small town and rural settings (and there's a bunch in Iowa!). And not just from a business perspective, but from a vacationer perspective as well.
Still, a business who can leverage and bring together the community and conversation around the content (destination place or along the journey) is going to win at the commerce piece.
Two experts (and trusted friends) – one specializing in small town, small business (Becky McCray) and one specializing in travel and tourism (Sheila Scarborough) have teamed up to launch Tourism Currents.
To quote my pal Chris Cree on this important work in his post "Social Media Training for the Travel Industry with Tourism Currents
"…whether you work for a chamber of commerce, a convention and visitors bureau, work in hospitality or the restaurant? business, these two ladies at Tourism Currents are perfectly positioned to help you tap into social media and attract more people to your business (and to your community)."
Sign ups start tomorrow (June 15). I've seen the course outline and I'm trying to fit this course into my schedule (as a student) – it's that good, and that important to continue building business in and around Iowa.
Here are what some other experts in these fields have to say:
- Is the Tourism Currents Social Media Training Right for You?
- School’s in Session: Social Media Learning Resources for Tourism
- Travel and Tourism Meet Social Media
Note: The links to Tourism Currents above are affilate links – a first for me here. That should say a lot towards what I think of our coaches Becky and Sheila, and of the importance of the program.
Photo on Flickr by Mahalie
Special Offer: Finding Your Content Pivot
Have your found your Content Pivot? You should. It may just be your "What's Next?" I've already been working with several business and educational leaders on finding their Content Pivot. Your turn:
To take advantage of this (watch video)
What: Finding Your Content Pivot Coaching Session
- We'll examine your current web presence and CORE
- Discover your Content Pivot so future changes will be more positive and more profitable (not just more often)
- Prepare a plan of action on how to multi-M your stuff
I'll send you an email so we can schedule a time for you.
TIPS n TRIPS (TNT): Learn RSS Feeds Top to Bottom
Here's a dynamite opportunity if you're looking to improve how you're using certain tools within the Social Media toolset towards reaching your bottom-line goal of the whole package (we'll always begin with the bigger purpose in mind).
It's what I'm calling Tips in Trips (TNT). What's TNT?
A triple dose of rigorous 60-90 minute sessions (plus a free 30-minute follow-up session) of:
- one-on-one,
- distance-doesn't-matter,
- time-zones-don't-upset-us,
- not-just-the-surface-but-well-below-the-tip-of-the-iceberg-deep-immersion-schooling
Each tool will have it's own set of three live sessions — a deep-dive into using each tool (again – always with the bigger purpose in mind). We'll use some combination of Skype/Phone and CrossLoop.
These three-set sessions are designed to show business owners, association leaders, speakers, educators, or passion-into-profession folks how to use the tool in question
Normally, three one-on-one sessions totals $450. But this fireworks special is on the short fuse – 1/2 price. That's $225! But that's not all!
With this special summer offer, upon graduation of the sessions, you'll get a laminated cheat sheet for the tool. Everyone start with RSS Feeds. Ready?
Here's some of what you'll learn in the RSS Feeds set:
- Google Reader vs Google Alerts
- Search Once and Subscribe
- Why Using Personal Pronouns is Imperative
- Using RSS as a Relevant Signal Stream
- Is Your RSS Radar Up
- Monitoring Your Name, Brand, and Content
- Smarter Infosumption
- Pruning Down Your Feeds
- How Feeds Can Create Your Credibility Customer Loyalty
- Skim, Scan, Save…and Share
- RSS as a Content Producer and Publisher
- Filtering through the Echo Chamber
- Using Feeds for the Fringe
- Privatizing RSS Feeds for Premium Content
- ….much*16 more!!
The RSS course is a prerequisite for all other courses, which are independent of each other. Upcoming Tools – a la carte
- Blogging I – Within the Box (The Basics)
- Blogging II – Outside the Box (The Advanced)
- Flickr
- SlideShare
- YouTube
- Delicious or Diigo
- Mobiel & Location-Based (Foursquare, Gowala, etc)
Let's Get started with RSS. An email will be sent to start you thinking about your purpose and scheduling of your three sessions of one-on-one immersion.
For Them & With Them = For You
We should get a "dot com"
We should get an AOL Keyword
Let's start blogging
We should get on Twitter
Let's do a Facebook Fan Page
Should we get an iPhone App?
These are the questions over the years that businesses large and small have discussed (or are just now starting to talk about).
It's a cycle.
Recognize it. It will come back around with advent of new tools and practices.
Still, for business, it always comes around to creating valuable content (for them) producing a conversational community (with them) with commerce (for you) as part of the end goal.
How I Just Got Smarter By Association: Lunchtime Masterminds
For the past few weeks, I’ve taken part in a new weekly web show, Lunchtime Masterminds (#LTMM), co-founded by the same team that put together the Boesen Case Study I shared recently.
A few weeks ago, I was looking to outsource the build out of my own Social Media curriculum and create a members-only area for the new e-course (More about the curriculum below and in forthcoming posts).
That’s when Doug Mitchell and Andy Brudtkuhl started talking to me about the launch of Lunchtime Masterminds. (Here’s a 2-minute video Doug shares about the LTMM success plan)
Hearing the plans that Doug and Andy have for LTMM and the business model they have — well, I believe it’s a natural progression for anyone who has been publishing a blog and/or has a passion for the message they’re bringing to the converspehre
With that in mind, I’ve agreed to make my Social Media curriculum available exclusively at Lunchtime Mastermind Academy, a membership-based site that will provide members the proven successful tools and techniques to turn readers into customers, searchers into fans, page views into dollars.
The curriculum I’m adding will include several modules, each module containing in-depth and outlined lessons on
- the how, why, and who of engagement;
- how to measure success;
- success stories and ways to emulate those into your own success
- interviews with other experts
- video tutorials;
- live webinar access;
- and graphic organizers and worksheets
And my content won’t be the only “stuff” because Doug and Andy are lining up Masterminds from various disciplines including Marketing, Sales, Education, Legal, Retail, Entertainment, Design … well, you get the idea – a true Mastermind Academy.
And it’s not just about “genius” – because they are being “generous” now as well. A charter membership to LTMM is only $1 to begin — but it’s limited to the first 100 members. And if you have interest in putting some of your content into a premium area and becoming part of the Mastermind curriculum (there’s always room for one more good on), apply to be an affiliate of Lunchtime Mastermind yourself.
Case Study: Social Media Marketing with Boesen the Florist
The team at CreateWOWMedia released a case study today on their work with Boesen the Florist, a Des Moines, IA retailer.
Along with the new case study, they also share a video from the owners of Boesen and their sense of how Social Media has impacted their marketing efforts:
The case study is not only visually pleasing, but there are real-life numbers. Numbers that any small business owner or social media "guru" can use as examples or models.
One key with this project was how the client (Boesen) was able to articulate a goal, a purpose with the agency (CreateWOW). The case study is yours to download for free (might be opt-in logon by now). Use and share as desired.
Disclosure: I've been doing some work of late with CreateWOW. This is a company that gets Social Media is a toolset that helps us build, not a foundation around which we build business.
3 C’s of Business Balance: Since Chalk on a Rock
Conversational community has been built around content since the days of drawing images on the walls of caves and hills of sand. And we will always have a conversation going on around and about the content we produce and consume.
Content and Community. And Commerce. What, all those drawings were just a hobby? Even if it started out that way, if there was value in what was being said — the community would praise and pay for the continuation of the output.
But what now? What's the natural progression for someone who has been creating and producing in this age of conversational media and consumer generated content? In many cases, the commerce part – or lack of it – can keep us off balance in the exchange.
The three-legged bar stool of balance in this generation (and maybe all the previous ones, too) is the three C's of Content, Commerce, and Community Take one away, and your business won't be stable.
- Content + Community (but no Commerce) = You might have lots of fans and eyeballs, but you won't be able to sustain it without an income.
- Community + Commerce (but no Content) = You'll probably experience a "flash-in-the-pan" growth spurt, but without content (or a product or service), you'll not last.
- Commerce + Content (but no Community) = You'll do fine…if you are your own customer. But with nobody talking to you or more importantly, about you — you'll soon be alone.
Does your business plan have balance? Check the legs on those C's.
Image provided by courtesy of Jodi Krzyzak at VIVE Foundation
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