Small Business Trends

Would you believe me if I told you that I have seen sites that confirm every single stereotype about their industry?  I have seen “official websites” hosted on free blogging platforms, local business listings that have nothing to do with what the business in question does, people attacking customers whose reviews were not favorable, etc.

I also saw a number of restaurants that market themselves online better than Seth Godin ever would if he had a restaurant.

This story is about mistakes that small and medium sized businesses make on the web.

1. Failing to Understand the Basics of Internet Marketing

This is perhaps the most dangerous of all mistakes that SMBs make online, because it can come with a hefty price tag.

Internet marketing is a young, unregulated industry…

Would you like to ask a question of Richard Florida, the bestselling author of The Rise of the Creative Class?

Please join me Monday, December 14, 2009, from 2:00 – 3:00 pm New York time (EST).  I’ll be live-tweeting a webcast with him.  Join me and you will have a special opportunity to submit questions to him.

Florida is well known for coming up with the term “creative class” which he has described as:

“… a fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depend. Members of the creative class do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries—from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts. They do not consciously think of…

It’s Cyber Monday — that famous online shopping day. And why shouldn’t it be a shopping day for small business people like us?

Well it is!

Here are a few hand-picked specials I recommend and hope you can take advantage of:

HP store — Our long-time sponsor here, Hewlett Packard, has some healthy Cyber Monday deals.  I personally purchase HP products (like my HP netbook which I reviewed here) because of the quality.   Here’s a link to small-business deals at the HP store.  Or, perhaps you’d like the consumer deals.   Or, if you’d simply like to contribute to those less fortunate, you can buy through the HP “Create a World of Change” website and HP will donate 4% of your purchase price to the charity of your choice.

Headway…

This past September we asked you to contribute your best tips for going green with your small business.  As a token of our appreciation, we gave every U.S. resident who contributed a chance to win a Free HP Desktop Computing Suite.

And the winner is…

Congratulations to Lizette Pirtle!

Lizette is the co-founder and CEO of International Expansion Experts and blogs regularly on Small Biz Franchise Blog and Franchise Success: The New Formula.

You can learn more about Lizette by following her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Lizette wins the beautiful HP Compaq dc7900 Ultra Slim Business PC, 22-inch widescreen monitor, and HP OfficeJet Pro 8500 Premier All-in-One printer/fax/scanner.

In an effort not to exclude any of our readers, we ran a separate drawing for outside-the-U.S. participants (since we could not ship the computer outside…

Back in September, we asked our readers to contribute their best green business tips.  We wanted you to share your ideas for going green in your small business.

As usual, the Small Business Trends readers came through. We were able to collect 100 awesome green small business tips.  We listed all 100 tips below which have been divided into 4 categories; Conserve, Recycle, Go Paperless and Adopt Green Practices. Please click through all of the pages (above or below the post) to see all 100 of the green small business tips.

If you prefer, you can also download all 100 green small business tips as a PDF document: 100 Green Small Business Tips.

Without further delay, here are 100 green small business tips for your small business with the contributor’s name,…

Back in late August we asked you to participate in or comment about our Twitter chat, Copyrights and Trademarks: What You Need To Know For Your Website.  In return, we would enter you in a random drawing to win an HP 8500 Officejet Pro Wireless Multifunction Printer/ Copier/ Scanner/ Fax.

We are pleased to announce the lucky winner.  Drumroll please…

Congratulations to Stacey Mayo!

Stacey is the Director of the Center for Balanced Living and the creator of The Peaceful Entrepreneur Program and The One Minute Meditation.  You can learn more about Stacey by following her on Twitter and Facebook.

Upon learning she won our grand prize, Stacey commented “It is nice to win a prize just for doing something I was naturally drawn to do, i.e., post a comment. I…

A huge trend today is going green in your business.  “Going green” sounds weighty – but it’s not really.  It can be very simple stuff that brings BIG benefits — everything from making double-sided photocopies so you save paper, to swapping out incandescent light bulbs for more efficient fluorescent bulbs.  Not only are you doing something worthwhile for our environment, but you can save money.

So, to encourage others to “go green” in their small businesses, I’m collecting tips for going green.  I will publish the best ones in a “Top 100 Tips for Going Green in Your Business” roundup.

And since YOU always have the best ideas, I’m asking your help.

Please share a tip about how YOU are going green in your business, or how others…

The following is a checklist of issues and questions for protecting your online presence for your business, from the standpoint of trademarks and copyrights. We will be updating this as our tweetchat event (#smbchat) progresses.

Introductory reading

• Basic intellectual property terminology — the difference between copyrights, trademarks and other intellectual property
• Introduction to trademarks
• Introduction to copyrights

WEBSITES AND CONTENT ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

• All content (text, images and other forms) is protected from the time of creation
• Registration is a good idea
• What to do if someone copies your stuff
• What is it really worth?
• What if they just gave you credit?
• Cease & desist letters, lawsuits, settlements, results
• Fees and costs

What to do you if you want to copy someone else’s stuff?

• Can’t you just link to it?
• Is it in the public domain?
• What is fair use?
• What is not…

Have you ever wished you could get understandable information about trademarks and copyrights and other legal issues regarding your small business website?  For questions such as:

• Someone is stealing my blog content and images — what can I do?
• Or:  We have been using a logo for 3 years but have not filed a trademark; can we protect it or did we miss the filing deadline?
• Or:  What’s the best way to remember to update your copyright date?

We’re here to help! We are holding a Twitter chat with an attorney and an experienced Web entrepreneur.  You will get the straight scoop on common trademark and copyright questions asked by small businesses about their online presence.  Here are the details:

WHAT: Online chat using Twitter.  These chats are also called tweetchats. …

In May of 2009 we asked you, our loyal readers, to give us your best Twitter tips.

Over the course of several weeks, we accepted your tips via email, Twitter and in comments to the original post.  We asked readers to simply answer one of the following 6 questions:

• Getting Started: How would you suggest other small businesses get started on Twitter?
• Smart Marketing: What’s the right way (or wrong way) to promote your business on Twitter?
• Observing Etiquette: What is your #1 Twitter etiquette tip for small business owners?
• Spreading Your Message: What is your best tip for getting re-tweeted?
• Time Management: How do you manage your time on Twitter?
• Advanced Strategies: What is your best kept secret (something not widely known) for using Twitter in business?

To all of the Small Business Trends readers, thank you very much…