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Tonight at midnight Facebook will allow businesses with fan pages to reserve a branded URL, but I just learned you must have over 1,000 fans to do so. Currently the Duct Tape Marketing fan page on Facebook needs a few more to top 1,000. Just for fun won’t you join today and push us over the top? Thanks
Update: We did top the 1000 mark before midnight, but then I learned from Facebook that you had to do that by May 31st, Doh! - Anyway thanks to the folks that supported this in various SM outposts - very nice display of the power of social media.
Users of the Firefox browser know about the capability to extend the browser’s functionality through add-ons. There are thousands of these little tools and more are developed everyday.
While these toolbars and add-ons can help you find, communicate, search, automate, chat, post and tweet, half the battle is finding ones that really add value for your needs.
Recently Firefox introduced what they call add-on collections, giving anyone the ability to put together recommended groups of add-ons with a specific user in mind - power user, designer, web developer, etc.
So, today I would like to introduce the Ultimate Small Business Collection. This is a hand picked group of 12 add-ons that I personally use to enhance the Firefox browser for my small business activity. You can download and install the entire collection with one button and find ways to better bookmark, participate socially, automate repetitive tasks and research web sites for SEO purposes.
I’m always looking ways to make this collection better, so let me know if you’ve come across add-ons I need to put in the collection.
In case you had not heard, starting at 12:01 a.m. EDT on Saturday, June 13, you’ll be able to choose a username on a first-come, first-serve basis for your profile and the Facebook Pages that you administer by visiting www.facebook.com/username/.
You can only choose a single username for your profile and for each of the Pages that you administer and think carefully about the username you choose. Once it’s been selected, you won’t be able to change or transfer it.
Be sure to check out this FAQ for answers to common questions, and if you’re an administrator of Facebook Pages, get more details here. If you want to ensure you keep the rights for a trademark or other protected name, contact us here.
The title to this post came from a discussion with one of my readers about the need to routinely teach everyone in the organization about what your ideal customer really buys from you.
The suggestion from my reader was that this was the kind of advice that was a lot like practice fundamentals for say, a basketball player. Larry Bird, one of the all time greats, was legendary for shooting hundreds of free throws every day. He was the league MVP four times and led the NBA in free throw percentage each of those four years he was honored.
So, what I’m wondering is this - What fundamental marketing “drills” should you, and every one in the organization be doing every single day to become marketing MVPs? (or at least get off the bench)
Here’s my list for starters:
Review a description and perhaps even photos of ideal customers
Review a list of trigger phrases customers say out loud or to themselves when expressing a need for what you sell
Review and practice answering this question in a marketing way - What do you do for living?
Review and practice telling someone the most impactful way to describe the value your organization brings in 30 seconds or less
Answer at least one phone or written customer/prospect inquiry, no matter your job title
Call one customer and ask them to share something they need, want, like or dislike about doing business with your organization
Review a list of stated organization or personal marketing goals and the indicators used to track them.
So, what about you, what do you organization’s layup and free throws look like and have you done them before bed today?
A lot of marketers get both confused and fed up with all the talk about things like new media, social media, inbound marketing, user generated content, and the age of conversation. I mean, how is a person suppose to apply all these somewhat vague and hard to pin down terms and trends. Well, there’s no denying that the world and certainly the world of marketing has changed. If you’re trying to wrap your head around what that might mean for you, here are seven very concrete ways to start viewing the evolution of your marketing strategies and practices.
1) Your marketing strategy is a sales strategy - far too many small business folks view marketing as selling. I’ve got nothing against sales, you must have them, but what you must have, before a sales presentation is ever made, is a crystal clear, very easy to understand difference. You must claim and communicate at every turn the way that your products, services, and processes are uniquely here to make some narrowly defined target market’s life better. Oh, and it can’t be boring, there must be something remarkable enough about your business or strategy that people go out of their way to tell others about it. Do that and selling not only gets easier, it gets somewhat superfluous.
I’ve noticed more and more folks taking shots at the value of social media. For example there’s Beware of Social Media Marketing Myths from Gene Marks in Business Week. It’s a natural evolution, I suppose, since social media has pretty much been hyped as the way to riches, better looks, and total self-actualization. I mean, this weekend my local paper had articles on twitter in three different sections, including sports. I get it, I’m tired of the hype too.
But, this is exactly the cycle that any valid innovation or trends goes through to settle in. So, to me this is a good sign that social media participation is just about to settle in as a mainstream business tool. Range back a little more than ten years ago and you’ll find media coverage claiming web sites were nice distractions but not really something businesses should take seriously. Of course, blogging emerged in 2004, made the cover of every magazine in 2005, was promoted and hyped as the way to riches, better looks, and total self-actualization in 2006, bashed as overhyped in 2007, and is now a standard business tool that has evolved into the mainstream marketing plumbing. (Oh and by the way, notice how there are very few blog experts left selling get rich with blogs.)
I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it won’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week)
Google quietly added some new search results views very near the front page. If you do a search you will now see a “more options” link at the top of the page. Click that link and you can view your results in forums, recent news, and reviews.
They have also created something called the Wonderwheel that displays your results in more of mind map fashion including the related search results.
Duct Tape System - Complete small business marketing system in 14 workbooks and 4 audio CDs.
Marketing Plan Pro powered by Duct Tape Marketing
The Duct Tape Marketing System now comes as Marketing Planning Software. We teamed up with Palo Alto Software, the makers of Business Plan Pro, to bring you the most powerful small business marketing plan tool going. More info here . . .
Referral Flood by John Jantsch
Referral Flood - How to create a flood of new business without spending one dime on advertising - by John Jantsch
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Users of the Firefox browser know about the capability to extend the browser’s functionality through add-ons. There are thousands of these little tools and more are developed everyday.![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=56fdd389-ee61-45d0-a1ed-be592640acdc)
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The title to this post came from a discussion with one of my readers about the need to routinely teach everyone in the organization about what your ideal customer really buys from you.
A lot of marketers get both confused and fed up with all the talk about things like new media, social media, inbound marketing, user generated content, and the age of conversation. I mean, how is a person suppose to apply all these somewhat vague and hard to pin down terms and trends. Well, there’s no denying that the world and certainly the world of marketing has changed. If you’re trying to wrap your head around what that might mean for you, here are seven very concrete ways to start viewing the evolution of your marketing strategies and practices.
I’ve noticed more and more folks taking shots at the value of social media. For example there’s 
I’ve added a weekend post routine that I hope you enjoy. Each weekend I write a post that features 3-4 things I read during the week that I found interesting. Generally speaking it won’t involve much analysis and may range widely in topic. (Flickr image included here is also fav image of the week)![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_c.png?x-id=90dc3eb3-9de7-4de7-8abe-c4853bacb5a5)
