I Answered Away about Online Marketing


Quickbooks Community siteThis past week I volunteered my time for the “Ask the Expert” segment over at the QuickBooks Community forum (second year in a row). I answered questions from members of the community about Web 2.0 and online marketing.

Lots of great questions — you guys made me think! Here are some of the topics:

  • How do I grow RSS subscribers?
  • Setting up a website for the first time
  • Blog vs email newsletter
  • How many social networks do you need?
  • Any SEO packages or tutorials you’d recommend?

What I liked best was being able to talk one-on-one to answer specific questions. It’s quite a bit different from writing regular articles or columns. Definitely more like having a personal conversation.

I wasn’t able to answer all of the questions — sorry if I didn’t get to yours.

Start here to read all the Q&A. When you get to the bottom of that page, remember to click in the lower right corner on the “Next” button — it’s a little hard to see unless you’re looking for it.

9 Comments ▼

Anita Campbell Anita Campbell is the Founder, CEO and Publisher of Small Business Trends and has been following trends in small businesses since 2003. She is the owner of BizSugar, a social media site for small businesses.

9 Reactions
  1. Thanks, Anita, this was great. Thanks for the answers about growing RSS subscribers. RSS is a growing thing ……

  2. The Q&A was well done and very insightful. How’s your logo progressing?

  3. Agree with Gary that the Q&A was well done. But you missed so much Anita! Such as FriendFeed. FriendFeed aggregates all your friends feeds from places like Twitter and blogs into one spot.

  4. Thanks, StartupStories. I just wish RSS were easier to describe. People need to experience it to understand it.

    Gary, thank you. I’ll be writing the next installment about the logo shortly.

    Hi Albert, yes, there’s a lot to cover — online marketing and Web 2.0 are a huge area. But remember that I was writing for small businesspeople, not the web 2.0 cognoscenti or SEO professionals or professional marketers.

    Small businesspeople are very smart, but very busy and with limited time and money for online marketing. I’ve found it’s best to go one step at a time, rather than expecting people to become professional online marketers overnight. Even if we WANT to do more online marketing, we don’t always have time or money to follow through because we have to run our businesses.

    Anita

  5. This was fantastic – I’m always fascinated by how much there is to learn in each of these areas. I’m jumping over to my own blog to see if I’m doing the most I can with my RSS subscribers. The biggest thing that jumped at me through your responses, Anita is that social media is a kind of layered learning. You learn a little, implement a little and then learn some more. Thanks for that.

  6. Great information. Learned lots of useful things, thank you. I was especially interested in your advice for better online marketing.

  7. Very nice. You shared some very good advice there. I have been using online marketing for a while now as a way to make money online, but no matter how long you do it, there is always more to learn. I am surprised that you can answer those questions like you do, I am pretty sure if people started asking me I would instantly forget everything I have ever learned.

  8. Martin Lindeskog

    I like the style of personal conversation. It was like you sitting “across” the table, answering the questions. A nice, relaxed “water cooler” conversation. It made my day!

  9. Anita,

    I had responded to the blog asking you if you or any of your readers were familiar with “HUBSPOT” ? Any ideas ANYONE? This could be very important to many small business owners.Please advise.