Hello everyone!  A short post today to send your attention to our KONTOR News page, where a big announcement was posted earlier:  KONTOR has a brand new Affiliate program!  Check it out: Money and Happiness for all!

affiliate · blog · KONTOR

1. A really big company newsletter – converse with co-workers and customers (e.g. IBM)
2. Efficient, Effective Executive Recruiting (e.g. Sodexo)
3. Customer care and support (e.g. Comcast)
4. Publicizing a local café (e.g. The Coffee Grounz)
5. Clearing Old Stock Inexpensively (e.g. Dell)
6. Tweeting Company Culture (e.g. Zappos.com)
7. Live Tweet Surgery to Enhance Reputation (e.g. Henry Ford Hospital)
8. Conversation in a Global Café (e.g. Starbucks Coffee)
9. Putting a Human Face on an Old Image (e.g. Pitney Bowes)
10. A Community of Investment Analysts (e.g. Stocktwits)
11. A Reverse Auction for Graphic Designers (e.g. CrowdSPRING)
12. Damage Control (e.g. Ford Motors)
13. Emergency business communications (e.g. United Linen)
14. Present in a Crisis (e.g. Home Depot and Whole Foods)
15. Branded Tweeting – Attract Customers with Talking Logos (e.g. Carl’s Jr.)
16. Defend Your Corporate Identity (e.g. Mayo Clinic)
17. Launch Your Startup with Zero Budget (e.g. Seesmic)
18. Start a New Media Business (e.g. Jim Long, Verge New Media)
19. Be a Bottom-Up Analyst (e.g. RedMonk)
20. Emerge from Under a Rock (e.g. Pistachio Consulting)
Read all the details at http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/10/1006_twitterville/index.htm

And for more information on how to: start your own conversation, communicate with the masses, and create a presence, contact KONTOR Business Support today.

brand · business · Marketing · Social Media · tools · Twitter

It figures… I write and talk and post and generally blather about how much I love HootSuite. And how do they repay me (and everyone else who also blathers about how much they love HootSuite)? They ask for money. They hold out their little owl wing and give us those big owl eyes. “If you really love me, you’ll pay.” Read this post for the official announcement from HootSuite CEO Ryan Holmes.

How do we approach this? Personally, I will do fine with HootSuite’s free (and unfortunately ad-supported) version, which allows 5 social networks and 1 RSS feed.

But what about your company, with multiple feeds and campaigns? What about some of the other features we were just starting to dig into, like using the Team tools for collaborating? You can have 1 (that’s ONE) team member if you sign up for the Silver plan, for $19.99 a month.

Check out the plans here: http://hootsuite.com/plans. (For Starship Captains, there’s an enterprise plan for $1500/month. http://hootsuite.com/enterprise.)

There are other tools out there, but none with the comprehensive feature set of HootSuite. As we discussed in a previous blog post, a big plus is the ability to time-post your content. None of the other tools gives this capability – yet. Can’t help wondering if, because of this change, other services such as Seesmic (which has a web version) and Tweetdeck (which does not) will offer timed posts – and stay free. Time will tell!

Another tool that we were starting to play with is the Team tool, in which we can invite team members to collaborate with us on projects, such as setting up a campaign and having the consultant and other team members able to contribute posts, monitor mentions, and work with the same dashboard from wherever they are. It seems very steep to pay $50 a month for only 4 team members.

And finally, being able to add RSS feeds (relevant blogs, etc) with ease has been slightly curtailed. To have up to 10 feeds in your dashboard, you’ll pony up $4.99/month.

Despite the fact that I am complaining (I have been very spoiled for too long), there is no doubt whatsoever that HootSuite’s features make it very well worth paying for. This makes a very compelling case for paying for the service level you need – you indeed do get what you pay for! But as hard as it is to start paying for a formerly-free service you may find you just can’t do without it.

Will you pay for HootSuite service? We’ll check back with you; decisions are being made by many businesses this week on how to proceed.  If you need help making a decision, let us know! We will all work together to make the very best solution for your business  – and ours!

business · Hootsuite · Social Media · tools

Yep, I was nervous about it. The idea of going beyond just a Facebook status update about an upcoming activity and actually saying I had just checked in to a Starbucks… well, now I was telling everyone on my Facebook and Twitter feeds where I was at that moment.  Gulp!

Foursquare, Gowalla, and Yelp all allow you to check in at places by geo-locating you in or near a list of venues.  You can add a venue if it’s not listed.  For example, last week I checked in at my car dealer’s service center and had to add that venue.

Since then, I’ve checked in at Starbucks, several restaurants, and a couple of other venues.  I would say I have become involved.  What happened?

I think a lot of social media services and their adoption rates have a lot to do with generation.  I’m a boomer.  I have completely different boundaries than, say, my Gen-X or Gen-Y friends, who have grown up a little closer to the boundary-less life.  Until recently I shuddered  at the thought of someone knowing what I was doing.  Privacy remains an issue for many people, and not just from a “where am I now” perspective.  There’s also the “who has that data and what are they doing with it” angle!

Be that as it may, I tweet, post, and now check-in with abandon.  Old dogs learning new tricks?  Or – a mind once expanded can’t go back to its original dimensions?

We can share so much more than we could, using internet and social media tools, than we could two or even one year ago.  How do we work with that adoption rate from a personal or a business perspective?

Foursquare, to use it as our LBS (location-based services) example, does not yet really have a complete hold on consumers yet, because they have not clearly stated a value proposition, meaning “What’s in it for me?”  There are certainly the makings of a dynamic business model, however, sharing location data has not yet translated into a system to buy and sell advertising that will attract users.

Do you think that receiving targeted ads, coupons and deals makes up for the change in individual privacy boundaries?  We’d love to hear your thoughts.

And by the way – Facebook, which has faced its own privacy concerns, may have trouble even getting more than a toe in the water of location based services.  Twitter, on the other hand, has had the ability to turn on location-based tweets for the better part of the year, with little backlash.  Do you use this?

Foursquare’s growth shows no signs of slowing; a spring survey showed over ¾ million users and nearly ¼ billion check-ins.  It’s here to stay, and time will tell if the highly targeted advertising compels – or alienates – users.  Let’s check back on this in, say, 6 months.  It’s a date.

business · Facebook · Foursquare · Location-based services · Marketing · New Marketing · Social Media · tools · Twitter

Looking for a fast, easy, and free way to monitor your brand, industry and associated keywords?  Here are two tools you can start using right away!

Google Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts)

Google Alerts

Each keyword, phrase or brand mention can be set up as a separate alert.  You can receive updates via e-mail or an RSS feed.

If you use iGoogle, you can display your Alerts results right on the iGoogle screen.

Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com)

This is a simple way to look up keywords on an as-needed basis. Type in any search term, phrase, company name to see what’s trending and what’s been said about your term.

You can also use Twitter’s Advanced Search (http://search.twitter.com/advanced) to really dig into specifics about your keywords and phrases.

And a special bonus mention to our favorite Social Media dashboard, Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com).  With a Hootsuite account set up to monitor your social networks, you can also set up keyword monitoring in a panel on the screen, along with a Mention panel for your Twitter feed, so if you are mentioned by any other Twitter user or are re-tweeted, a post will appear.

There are a lot more tools out there to help you in your keyword monitoring efforts – Kontor Business Support can help you choose the best ones for you as we craft your social media strategy.

brand · Facebook · Hootsuite · Marketing · Social Media · tools · Twitter

A recent study shows the adoption of social media technology by small businesses has doubled in the past year. Still, only 16% of respondents have embraced Twitter, so small businesses still have a way to go when it comes to truly engaging in the realm of social media.

Why? Well, according to David Spark of Spark Media Solutions, a lot of small business owners are concerned about time. You know the old song-and-dance, “I have no time to blog. I have no time to tweet,” etc. etc. Sparks says that this is all well and good, but that people don’t realize how much time they’re wasting by sticking to the tools of the old guard. Think of how many e-mails you send out on a daily basis or how many phone calls you make. Well, social media can not only cut down on those time-suckers, but also help you connect to a wider group of people on a more personal level. Moreover, it’s a hell of a lot more fun to keep up a fan page complete with FAQs and videos than it is to answer 1,000 e-mails all related to the same issue.

We know that business is, well, business, and the addition of a social media strategy is likely akin to “work” in your mind, but let’s, for a moment, focus on the word “social” here. Social means having a conversation. Social means interactions. Social means fun. So instead of casting this kind of campaign as a thankless chore, let’s think of social media the same way the younger set does.

Here are 3 trends teens and 20-somethings dig, recast as business ideas.

1. Listen to gossip. Small businesses are increasing the use of social media monitoring to help understand their own brand, industry, product etc.,” says Mike Rynchek, president of Spyder Trap Online Marketing. “Originally larger brands used social media monitoring as a means of judging engagement, customer service, etc., however smaller brands are learning this can be a great tool to gain a competitive advantage and develop means for differentiation. Now we generally use social media monitoring as a business intelligence tool.”
2. Share content. According to Rick Burnes, who leads the content production team at HubSpot, a marketing software firm that produces the Inbound Marketing Blog and Inbound Marketing University, “The most important thing is content. What I mean by content is just creating interesting, useful information on all sorts of media about things your business is interested in. Blogging is the easiest format. You can created content on your site, and then share it on Facebook. You can also create photos and videos and share those on Facebook.”
3. Have an attitude. Probably the most important thing a small business can do is to have an engaging, dynamic online persona. No one wants to read a Twitter stream that only deals with menu updates or sales — people want to engage with a brand. As Dallas Lawrence says, “Small businesses should be thinking of [social media] as the new town square. It’s where they can engage in a sustained and regular dialogue. Just as a small businessman knows, you can’t talk to someone one time and close the sale for a lifetime. You need to transfer what you know in the offline space to the online space.”

Don’t stress. So you’ve joined Twitter, put up a Facebook fan page and created some content for your blog. At this point, you may be tearing out your hair, wondering, “Where the hell is my ROI?” Well, take it from Lawrence: “Social media isn’t like Kevin Costner’s field of dreams — just because you build it doesn’t mean people will come.” Having a social media presence doesn’t necessarily mean your business will flourish overnight: In order to have any quantifiable effect, you need to keep it up and figure out what works best for you.

At KONTOR, we’re experts at creating, implementing and managing successful sales and marketing campaigns that get results. Contact us today for peace of mind, education and a true value added partnership.

blog · brand · business · Facebook · Marketing · ROI · Social Media · tools · Twitter

So You Want to Be Your Own Boss… By Tamara Monosoff

If you want to start a business but don’t know where to start, don’t worry–you are not alone. In fact, given the new economic reality of our time, more people than ever before have found the “job” they thought was waiting for them doesn’t exist. Others have come to the conclusion that they would rather create work they love, constructed to fit with their own life goals. No matter what the motivation is to be your own boss, you can start today.

Here are eight tips to get you started:

1. Take a Stand for Yourself.
   If you are dissatisfied with your current circumstances, admit that no one can fix them except for you. It doesn’t do any good to blame the economy, your boss, your spouse or your family. Change can only occur when you make a conscious decision to make it happen.
2. Identify the Right Business for You.
   Give yourself permission to explore. Be willing to look at different facets of yourself (your personality, social styles, age) and listen to your intuition. We tend to ignore intuition even though deep down we often know the truth. Ask yourself “What gives me energy even when I’m tired?”
3. Business Planning Improves Your Chances for Success.
   Most people don’t plan, but it will help you get to market faster. A business plan will help you gain clarity, focus and confidence. A plan does not need to be more than one page. As you write down your goals, strategies and action steps, your business becomes real.Ask yourself the following questions:
   - What am I building?
   - Who will I serve?
   - What is the promise I am making to my customers/clients and to myself?
   - What are my objectives, strategies and action plans (steps) to achieve my goals?
4. Know Your Target Audience Before You Spend a Penny.
   Before you spend money, find out if people will actually buy your products or services. This may be the most important thing you do. You can do this by validating your market. In other words, who, exactly, will buy your products or services other than your family or friends? (And don’t say… “Everyone in America will want my product.” Trust me–they won’t.) What is the size of your target market? Who are your customers? Is your product or service relevant to their everyday life? Why do they need it?
5. Understand Your Personal Finances and Choose the Right Kind of Money You Need for Your Business.
   As an entrepreneur, your personal life and business life are interconnected. You are likely to be your first–and possibly only–investor. Therefore, having a detailed understanding of your personal finances, and the ability to track them, is an essential first step before seeking outside funding for your business. This is why I recommend setting up your personal accounts in a money management system such as Mint.com to simplify this process.
6. Build a Support Network.
   You’ve made the internal commitment to your business. Now you need to cultivate a network of supporters, advisors, partners, allies and vendors. If you believe in your business, others will, too.Network locally, nationally & via social networks. Join networks like NAPW.com, your local chamber of commerce, or other relevant business groups.Sell By Creating Value.
7. Even though we purchase products and services every day, people don’t want to be “sold.” Focus on serving others. The more people you serve, the more money you will make. When considering your customers or clients, ask yourself:

   - What can I give them?
   - How can I make them successful in their own pursuits?
   - This approach can help lead you to new ways to hone your product or service and deliver more value, which your customers will appreciate.

8. Get the Word Out.
   Be willing to say who you are and what you do with conviction and without apology. Embrace and use the most effective online tools (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn) available to broadcast your news. Use social networks as “pointer” sites; i.e., to point to anything you think will be of interest to your fans and followers.

   Even though social networks are essential today (you must use them!), don’t underestimate the power of other methods to get the word out: e.g., word-of-mouth marketing, website and internet marketing tools, public relations, blog posts, columns and articles, speeches, e-mail, newsletters, and the old-fashioned but still essential telephone.

For more information, please visit http://www.entrepreneur.com/startingabusiness/inventing/inventionscolumnisttamaramonosoff/article207488.html

business · Employment · entrepreneur · Marketing · Social Media

by Stacy Karacostas

I’ve talked to plenty of entrepreneurs who are just barely eking by right now. One of the most common complaints I hear from long-time business owners is “referrals alone are just not enough anymore”.

What’s really interesting is that most of them aren’t doing anything different to market and grow their businesses, even though the marketplace has clearly changed.

On the other hand, I know other small business owners who’ve experienced unprecedented growth this year. I’m talking growth that would be considered stellar in a good economy. So, what are successful entrepreneurs doing differently? Here’s a list of 9 things successful small business owners are doing that you can do too…

1) Forget about the state of the economy.

Pay attention to how it changes your prospect’s buying behavior, but don’t let the gloom and doom get you down. If you sell products or services that are truly helpful or useful there will always be people willing to buy.

2) Offer something new.

If people aren’t buying what you’re currently selling, but they used to, that’s a sign something needs to change. The knee jerk reaction is to simply cut prices. But that devalues what you offer.

Instead, try adding value by creating new packages out of products and services you already have.  Or updating a current offering.  Even better, bring something completely new to the table… Hold a workshop, write an e-book, sell a new product or product bundle, offer training programs, delve deeper into a specific aspect of what you already offer.

3) Stop guessing.

Find out what your prospects, clients and customers want then give it to them. Do this by surveying your people in person, by using a short, written evaluation, or via email.

4) Embrace technology.

The World Wide Web is no longer the Wild, Wild West, but there’s still plenty of room to make your mark. And all the social networking tools make it super cheap to market your business effectively. So get out there and give it a go. You’ll expand your reach, get your wisdom further out into the world, and maybe even discover it’s fun.

5) Build your list.

Even before the Internet, business gurus said “The money is in the list”. In other words, you need a list of past and current customers, as well as a list of prospects, that you keep in touch with. That way, they get to know, like, trust and remember you.

6) Provide value.

The days of the pushy salesperson are going…going…gone. Nowadays people don’t have extra cash burning a hole in their pocket. So they expect good value for their time AND money.

Focus less on selling your products and services and more on how you can be a helpful problem solver in all your marketing and you’ll get better results.

7) Embrace mixed media marketing.

Silver bullets don’t exist when it comes to marketing. Instead of focusing on one media or tactic, create a strategy and plan that uses as many as you can to reach your people.

For example, write a weekly e-newsletter, host monthly tele-seminar, post articles, audios and video online, write a blog, go to live networking events and more.

Keep learning.

Times and technology are changing fast. It’s up to you to stay on top of what’s new and what’s working now. But you can’t do that if you’re always buried in your business.

So read a new book, attend tele-seminars and get yourself out to at least one non-industry specific conference each year.

9) Stop doing it all yourself.

This is a biggie. The people I know who have successful, growing businesses and fulfilling lives have figured this out. And it’s even truer in the Internet age. Face it, you don’t have time to become skilled at doing everything it takes to market, grow and run your business—especially online. Eventually you’ll hit a wall, business growth will stop, and you’ll be exhausted and burned out.

The solution?  Even if you don’t have the money to hire an employee you CAN afford to outsource. Call KONTOR and have them help you revamp your Website, set up and manage your blog or email newsletter, handle your social networking, automate your marketing and much more.

Marketing · New Marketing · Social Media

Forgive us for re-stating the obvious and re-posting this blog entry from February.  But I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to read this again in conjunction with the launch of our re-designed website at http://www.yourKONTOR.com.

It is more true now than it was even 5 months ago: business owners need time and expertise, and KONTOR can help provide that.  So read this post again and let us know how we can help you maximize your time and marketing budget!

BUSINESS OWNERS HAVE REACHED A HISTORIC CROSSROADS
(originally published February 5, 2010)

The whole way that businesses are approaching staying in business is changing and have now reached a historic crossroads. We at KONTOR Business Support hope that you’ll consider a bold new way of tackling the challenge of generating more business.  Unfortunately we now know of many companies that are going out of business due to the current economy. Indeed, the methods are going to have to change dramatically because the underlying questions of how to stay in business have changed so dramatically.

Social Media Marketing and Internet Marketing are at the forefront of what is called “New Marketing”. New Marketing defies the laws of Marketing and breaks new ground in ways of communicating with current and potential Management team members, employees, partners, patrons, consumers and clients.

New Marketing is one part Public Relations, one part Direct Selling, one part Advertising and one part Communication Management. KONTOR provides effective New Marketing that is cross-referential and multi-faceted, exercising all of these disciplines. We help our clients to achieve long term marketing goals without the large price tag generally associated with traditional marketing.

Most professionals and business owners do not have the expertise to maximize their results or they simply don’t have the time to invest.  By letting our experts manage the New Marketing Strategies for you, you are then able to maximize and convert every lead generated through these strategies to a paying client. That’s how easy it is.

Your Goals are KONTOR’s Goals.  When you partner with KONTOR, you essentially have a partner with a vested interest in your success.

At KONTOR, we make YOUR business OUR business!

Marketing · New Marketing · Social Media

I’m working – okay, playing – with Hootsuite again. What a great tool for managing all of your social media accounts in one place.

There are a number of very good tools available to manage your social media accounts. Not long ago, we got a great tool called Ping.fm, which allowed us, for the first time, post to multiple social networks at the same time.

While this was very welcome, we found out that what we really wanted was a way to make multiple posts AND monitor our feeds as well. We wanted to see all of our Facebook pages, both personal and business, and our Twitter feeds, and our blogs, all in one place, and post to them. Haven’t we been lucky that tools came along to meet these needs! Meet TweetDeck, Seesmic, and Hootsuite.

TweetDeck was my first love, but it is desktop based, and therefore not portable, unless you have an iPhone. I have a BlackBerry. Seesmic was my second love, because they have a web version, and they purchased Ping.fm with its large network of social media applications. They also have a version for the BlackBerry, which I still use, especially when tweeting during sporting events and meetings.

But then came the little owls.

Hootsuite, being totally web-based, means I can access it from anywhere, including my BlackBerry web browser, and a BlackBerry version is in the works. You’ll say – wow, sounds like Seesmic still has better features! Why do you like Hootsuite, apart from the cute owls?

All of these tools are similar: they have columns for each feed, and a box where you place your posts and links, and select which you wish to post to. Why do I think Hootsuite is better?

For me, it’s easier to add your Twitter, Facebook and blog (RSS) feeds to the newly redesigned Hootsuite. The new layout (which includes themes) and ease of accessing the tools is one BIG reason. Another reason is the newly added team tools, which means you can add team members to Hootsuite and collaborate on the posts and projects.

Last but certainly not least: You can time your posts. In other words, you can type in your posts, assign dates and times to each, and go away. Set it and forget it. Posts go out when scheduled and you can be doing other work. This feature helps answer the question “How will I have time to do social media?”

We sometimes say Woot! when we like something. In this case, I say “Hoot!” Let us help you set up all of your social media tools!

Facebook · Hootsuite · Social Media · tools · Twitter