Wednesday, December 29, 2010

just testing the blogger-droid app from my phone. I downloaded the app months ago but this is the first time I remembered to use it. Enough ~ go test!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Friday, December 3, 2010

How To: Look for Biz Advisors

Although I'm not a designer or have any design abilities, I'm almost obsessed with design related blogs. They're not only pictures for great eye candy, but there are a lot of insightful articles about crafty people. These crafty people are usually independent designers and entrepreneurs themselves who share and nurture small business communities.

One design blog I've followed over the years is Design*Sponge. They have a category called "biz ladies" which I've been following and this particular article is an example of how you can get useful information and insight from anywhere, even your non-business related hobbies.

This article advises users on how to look for business advisors and what to look for in a business advisor. Check it out and always keep open to inspiration that can come from anywhere.

Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » biz ladies: establishing relationships with advisors

Thursday, November 25, 2010

5 Reasons Why Billy Mays is Annoyingly Persuasive

Persuasiveness of Billy Mays

Very interesting article about the persuasiveness of Billy Mays. It pinpoints the five characteristics he exemplified that make him the great salesman that he was. Oxy Clean? Ya, I use it. And I can attest to the quality of the Magic Jack.

I also think these are great qualities to observe for any salesman. Check it out and see if you're not convinced. ;-)

Monday, October 25, 2010

Twitter Strategy

So, I jumped the gun and asked my admin assistant to get ready to help me with Twitter tactics, all before I came up with a clear strategy or did any research. I'm a brand manager by day but, unfortunately, I haven't had that much exposure to the social media strategy for the company where I am employed. I've read tons of articles but never had to apply any of the knowledge. So, that's what I'm doing this evening. I'm reviewing articles, other strategies and recommendations - anything I can find online. Here's what I've come across so far. Warning - these are old articles but definitely still useful and a start...

Create a Twitter Following by Guy Kawasaki
This article sums up some great tactics to follow like (1) Send @ messages to the "smores" (social media whores) because, "It's not who you know. It's who appears to know you" (2) Follow everyone who follows you (3) Establish yourself as a subject expert (4) Repeat your tweets. These are only a few of the suggestions he makes.

Five Market-Research Tools for Twitter from Entrepreneur.com.
This article provides useful research tools to find out more about your target audience and competitors who are using Twitter. One really useful tool I started using immediately after I read this article was search.twitter.com.

And another compelling article is Find Your Audience Now. This article provides various online tools used to find hyper-local audiences - something that could prove to be very useful for me since my site focuses on a geo-targeted audience.

I'm definitely not done researching and I'll continue to post new useful articles I find, but hopefully this is enough to get me started.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

TinEye Reverse Image Search

TinEye Reverse Image Search

I saw this website recommendation on How About Orange. TinEye is a reverse image search. It's a brilliant resource for designers, photographers, artists or anyone who is concerned that the images they upload to the web are being used without their permission. Also, great way to ensure your company's logo isn't being used somewhere without your knowledge.

The home page has a really simple interface - two options: upload image and search or enter the image address url. It's definitely a tool I'll keep in mind when I have to do an evaluation of my brand online.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

How Seth Godin Turns Browsers To Buyers

Any marketer worth their muster has read an article by Seth Godin or at least heard his name. He is a best selling author (some deem him as "America's Greatest Marketer") and marketing savant with an incredible blog. I recently stumbled upon an article that breaks down how Seth turns his audience into buyers.


How Seth Godin Turns Browsers To Buyers

Here's the breakdown the article provides:
1. The reader is the most important person on Seth's site.
2. Great titles
3. Brevity (of his titles)
4. Unique
5. Evangelists (rabid fan base)
6. Rabid Fans
7. Frequency
8. No images
9. Google juice (posts every day, so Google rates it higher than competitors)
10. Non-social social media (Seth doesn't have interactive community on his blog. No two way communication)
11. Call to action (get the reader to do something)

Friday, September 17, 2010

Facebook Page

So, I haven't set up a FB page for the site. As a career marketing manager, I figure I should come up with a plan and strategy before just launching a page and adding all these random people. But when I'm ready to start I'm definitely going to keep these strategies in mind:

http://smallbiztrends.com/2009/09/tips-to-get-people-to-join-your-facebook-fan-page.html

http://www.directcreative.com/blog/facebook-fan-page

The first link provides general ideas on what you should keep in mind when setting up a page. The second article definitely provides some great tactical advice on how to set up your page, like what to keep in mind when creating tabs, uploading your photo and such. I'm sure there are more detailed articles out there and I'll continue to post them on this blog as I come across them. For now, this is a start.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Deal Radar

I am a huge fan of Groupon and other daily deal sites. They usually provide huge discounts and introduce you to new places you may not have tried if there wasn't a daily deal promotion.

The one draw back to daily deals is that I started signing up for dozens of daily deal enewsletters. It's been packing my inbox and become overwhelming. Then I discovered Deal Radar. It compiles all the deals in the area you define. I highly recommend this. http://www.dealradar.com

Thursday, September 2, 2010

8 Reasons People Aren’t Sharing Your Content

Very useful tips I'm going to begin applying to my own blog here. The first step for me should be to make more regular posts. :)

http://www.ereleases.com/prfuel/people-arent-sharing-content/?awt_l=PLSl_&awt_m=JsAVx4KCUFtZk9

Educational Podcasts

Ok, I'm determined to stay productive this weekend and one of the things I'm going to do is subscribe to some of these podcasts and write about it here in the blog.

http://mashable.com/2010/09/02/back-to-school-podcasts/

Monday, August 9, 2010

Google Apps for Your Business: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Entrepreneur.com

As an entrepreneur, I need to squeeze in work time whenever I can. And unfortunately for the company I work for, that includes my 9-5 office hour time. Tools like Google Docs, Google Voice and Basecamp allow me to work from the 9-5 office and from my phone. The following article gives an interesting recap of the different Google resources. I disagree with them about Google Voice being on their "Not so great" list. Using Google Voice allows me to reduce my cell phone bill - and we all know that every dollar always counts ;-).

Google Apps for Your Business: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly - Entrepreneur.com

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Financing and some encouragement...

So, company name change and EIN transfer are finally finished! I can't believe I got the trademark on the first name and it actually took one entire year to change it to the new name. I finally went to the bank and was able to create a business bank account and I applied for a loan. I went to Chase to create the account and ask for a loan. The entire process only took one hour, including applying for the loan. I was worried I'd have to have all my projections and business plan complete but not anywhere close. All they need to see is my personal credit score because I don't have business financial history.

I can't believe it took a year to finally get to this point. I can't even blame my laziness for the time it took. Just took that long for the lawyers to file and state to approve. Jeese...how can business happen at this pace? It's exactly how I feel about the pace I'm moving in developing the business.

On one hand, I feel like I can't work any faster because I'm relying on freelance database admin and technical developers and their schedules. But on the other hand, I know I don't have to come home after work and just sit there watching TV for four hours. I'm usually guilt stricken for not working on the business plan, marketing plan, updating my blog, reading articles and expanding my knowledge, reviewing work from database admin, updating my financial projections, reviewing photos for the site and the other million little things I need to do. Sometimes I feel like there's just so much I just throw my hands in the air and give up all together. Which, obviously, is not the right decision. But f* it. I just worked 9-10 hours at my "9-5" job, last thing I want to do or even capable of doing is putting any further thought into something productive. Complain, complain, complain. Tired of even hearing my own complaints.

The one encouraging thing that happened recently was my meeting with my PACE financial management course instructor. Weeks after the class had been completed, each student scheduled time with the instructor, who owns her own accounting firm. During this hour we are able to ask her whatever relevant questions we had about our business finances. My main question was about my financial history and my lack of collateral and how they might affect my chances of obtaining a business loan. She suggested using the cash flow statement as my projections. I continued to speak with her about my business plan and such. For every question, I had a solid answer. Are you done with your business plan? Do you have experience with this type of business? I was encouraged by this. Despite how slowly I've been developing this business I was making progress and moving my dream forward. I have to remember to not always be so hard on myself and remember that.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Google AdWords White Paper

Here's a great white paper about starting Google AdWords. It provides the basics on setting up a Google AdWords account, researching keywords, writing ads and more. It's a white paper provided by Brad Callen and it seems to promote Keyword Elite (a software tool you can purchase to create keyword lists). The white paper doesn't hit you over the head with a sales pitch. It's a really helpful guide and I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.dave57.com/keywordelite/adwordsmadeeasy.pdf

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Accounting 101: The Fundamentals

Below is a new accounting tutorial I learned about from my "Financial Management Essentials" course at PACE (Pacific Asian Consortium in Employment).
http://www.pacela.org


Accounting 101: The Fundamentals
I'll probably review the course and write a review and learnings here on the blog. :)


Here's the course content in case anyone is ever interested in a course at PACE.
Session 1: Principles of Financial Management, 5/25
Session 2: Profit and Loss Statement / Trend Analysis, 6/1
Session 3: Balance Sheet / Balance Sheet Analysis, 6/8
Session 4: Inventory Management & Pricing, 6/15
Session 5: Cash Flow Projections / Improving Cash Flow, 6/22
Session 6: Financing Your Business - Access to Capital, 6/29

Here's a little about PACE from their site:
PACE was created to offer job training and job placement services to its constituent communities.

Today, PACE’s scope of services includes workforce development, housing services and development, environmental services, small business assistance, and early childhood education. PACE is headquartered in the Downtown Los Angeles area with field offices and programs located throughout Los Angeles, the San Gabriel Valley and the South Bay. The agency has a workforce of over 380 employees who are multi-lingual and multi-cultural to meet various needs of its constituent communities.

PACE is a leader in making positive changes in our diverse communities that have social and economic challenges. PACE transforms lives through empowerment of individuals, families and businesses.

Friday, May 21, 2010

YouTube - NIKE WRITE THE FUTURE - FULL LENGTH VERSION

Ah-mazing...Not only all the cameos, but great art direction, and camera movement that captures the emotion of the game not only from the point of view of fans, but for the players as well. It really portrays the fame, celebrity, notoriety that comes with launching onto the world stage as a professional athlete.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Evernote Review

My first review on productivity tools is Evernote. The image below is a description on their site about how to use Evernote. I especially enjoyed their soft edged graphics. But before I go into my review about Evernote, let me tell you how I discovered it. I stumbled upon an article titled, "12 Essential Android Apps for SMBs." http://tiny.cc/acl98 They listed the usual, Google Maps, Skype Mobile, Google Goggles which other blogs have been praising as well. I have some of these apps already but I discovered a few new ones I thought might be interesting to use and review like Evernote, Documents to Go, PageOne Personal Assistant and Pocket Lie Detector (that should be fun!).



So, couple weeks ago I attended an SBA/SCORE class in Glendale about building business credit and reviewed twenty recommended steps on how to accomplish it. Lots of great tactics and taught by an entrepreneur and business development consultatnt - super helpful! So, I thought I'd test my Evernote tool and record the session using the audio text tool. On my way home, I listened to the recorded sessions which I split into five parts. I found it useful because often times I can't write fast enough to get all the notes and for something as important as this I definitely didn't want to miss any details.

Next time, i may try recording it on Google Voice so the recording can then be transcribed, which I feel Evernote is missing. Also, would be nice if Evernote's text and audio notes could be transferred more easily to blogs.

Next productivity tool review will be Basecamp. It's an online project management tool I've been using for five years now and I can't imagine building my site without it. Stay tuned...

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Evernote

So at my attempt to keep this blog about my site development, keep relevant and make the most use of my productive but very expensive phone I have decided to write about tools I use online and on my phone that keep me productive. For example i am writing this at 2:30am from my verizon motorola droid phone from blogspot.com.

My first attempt at writing a review will be about Evernote. I'll explain more tomorrow when I'm a lil more awake. I met w/my creative director tonight and his girlfriend. Lots of fun and lots of business. I have an SBA class about building business credit - should be interesting. Will let you know and tell you more about Evernote tomorrow ;)

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

trendwatching.com's May 2010 Trend Briefing covering "STATUSPHERE"

trendwatching.com's May 2010 Trend Briefing covering "STATUSPHERE"

"STATUSPHERE | As consumers are starting to recognize and respect fellow consumers who stray off the beaten consuming-more-than-thou-path, 'new' status can be about acquired skills, about eco-credentials, about generosity, about connectivity... All of this makes for a far more diversified 'STATUSPHERE' than most brands and organizations have traditionally catered to. Time to really figure out how and where your customers are now finding their status fix."

Not sure how this relates to the Inland Empire, especially with more suburban and simple values. Or, maybe I'm thinking of the older generation of consumers in the IE. Now that 12 year olds have cell phones and are mobile I guess the article's mention of "participation is the new consumption" would be very relevant.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Five Steps to Social Currency

Great article in May 2010 (issue 145) of Fast Company titled "Five Steps to Social Currency." They discuss insightful real examples of various social media campaigns that companies like Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks, Gillette, etc. have done. The article called the following steps the new rules of the game.

1. Advocates trump followers: "'It's about all the interesting little things that let fans engage,'[David] Tryder says."
2. Context matters: "What's important is the bonding or "social context" during consumption."
3. Not every brand should be social
4. Social tools are a means, not an end
5. Gimmicks marginalize trust: Let the product be the hero

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Welcome

So everything I read continues to convince me that I need to start a blog in order to promote my web site. So, that's what I'm doing.

I have been working in the online advertising and marketing industry for over seven years. I'm a nerd about advertising and marketing. I'm one of those people who watch TV for the commercials, enjoy going to random web sites to view banner ads and peruse numerous industry pubs on a daily basis to keep up to date and sharpen my skills.

For the past four years, I have been working on a site on the side from my 9 to 5 job (actually more like 9 to 9 and weekends also :)). The site is an online neighborhood guide for the Inland Empire in California (Riverside and San Bernardino counties). Over the years I've been lucky enough to learn how to develop, execute and maintain a web site and content from my 9 to 5 career. It's only been for the past couple years that I've been learning more about how to develop a business.

This blog is my response to numerous articles that recommend writing a blog to promote your business. I hope to share useful articles, resources, document my experience developing my business and maybe meet some new people along the way. Here goes...

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