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The starfish and the long tail have trouble getting along
Nov 10th
We’ve all heard the parable of the kid throwing back the starfish, even though there are a million on the beach. “It makes a difference to that one!”
The Long Tail argues that if you can aggregate enough choices, people will make a choice and you’ll do fine. Netflix, superstores, eBay–these are all long tail businesses. They might not sell that thing, but you can bet they’re going to sell something.
Long tail businesses excel at selling anything, but they’re not so good at selling one thing.
Which is fine, unless you’re a starfish.
In a world of endless choice, it’s mathematically obvious that something’s going to get picked, but you, you the creator, the marketer, the one with something at stake–you’re not at all concerned about something. You’re concerned about you and your product.
If you’re a starfish, then, don’t sign up with the long tail guys. Build your own universe, your own permission asset. Find a tribe, lead it, connect with it, become the short head, the one and only, the one that we’d miss if you were gone.
The long tail is for organizations that own warehouses.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
The starfish and the long tail have trouble getting along
Nov 10th
We’ve all heard the parable of the kid throwing back the starfish, even though there are a million on the beach. “It makes a difference to that one!”
The Long Tail argues that if you can aggregate enough choices, people will make a choice and you’ll do fine. Netflix, superstores, eBay–these are all long tail businesses. They might not sell that thing, but you can bet they’re going to sell something.
Long tail businesses excel at selling anything, but they’re not so good at selling one thing.
Which is fine, unless you’re a starfish.
In a world of endless choice, it’s mathematically obvious that something’s going to get picked, but you, you the creator, the marketer, the one with something at stake–you’re not at all concerned about something. You’re concerned about you and your product.
If you’re a starfish, then, don’t sign up with the long tail guys. Build your own universe, your own permission asset. Find a tribe, lead it, connect with it, become the short head, the one and only, the one that we’d miss if you were gone.
The long tail is for organizations that own warehouses.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
Google + For Businesses: At Long Last, It’s Here
Nov 9th
After much anticipation, we’re finally seeing Google + Pages for business. They function much like Google personal profiles do: you can update your status, add people to Circles, host video Hangouts (video conferences) with others, and interact with other brands and people.
Think of a Google + business Page as a mini website for your business, with social networking features built in, and hosted by Google.
The Official Google Blog says:
“For businesses and brands, Google+ pages help you connect with the customers and fans who love you. Not only can they recommend you with a +1, or add you to a circle to listen long-term. They can actually spend time with your team, face-to-face-to-face.”
Google launched the new Pages with several brands as examples, including The Muppets, H&M, and Zen Bikes, all of which already have followers in the thousands.
What’s In it For Google
As you might expect, Google wants to make Google + as integrated as possible with other Google products. So the following two features are not that big a surprise:
The first feature is called Direct Connect. If you are searching on Google for a brand, simply put the + symbol before your search term to find the direct link to the company’s Google + Page (if they have one). You’ll automatically follow the company by searching with the new “+ company name” if you choose this option, and be taken to its Google + Page.
The other feature is simply that Google + Pages (and Profiles) appear in Google search. In searching my own name, my Profile was the first result. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not. But at the very least, if you regularly update your Profile, it seems like a good way to connect with other Google + users.
What’s In It For Small Businesses
The new Pages provide another online place for any business, including small businesses, to get exposure to new potential customers as well as to connect with existing contacts. Melinda Emerson, The Small Biz Lady, set up her business Page today. Emerson said:
“My team and I grabbed my Page for my SmallBizLady brand because we believe in the long term integration strategy of Google +. And we want to be a part of it.”
With Google’s Direct Connect forging a link between its Plus + product and Google search, small businesses have more opportunity to be found. Also, you’ll have the ability to target different segments of your audience through Circles (think different “circles” for Prospective Customers, Women 18-35, Men 60+, or even Employees). That means you’ll be able to target messages much easier to different demographics or groups of people. You can also see what conversations are going on in each of your circles — great for market research.
Some Drawbacks
There are a few drawbacks at this early stage of Google +. One is the lack of vanity URLs. Right now, your profile URL looks like this: https://plus.google.com/u/1/112445753792040250232/posts. I’m sure Google will get around to putting in user names or brand names in this, but for now, it’s unsightly. And long and non-user-friendly.
Google + Pages are also lacking analytics, and I’m sure that will be addressed as well. But for now, I want to know why I should put more effort into using Google +, and analytics are a great way to convince me. After all, if I’m getting traffic to my Google + Page, and analytics show it, then it may be worth my while.
Jesse Stay, author of Google + for Dummies said:
“Plus Pages aren’t going to be exactly like Facebook Pages – that may be the “con”, per se, since they don’t have near as many features. They don’t allow more than one admin to use the interface, there are no social media management tools that you can interface yet, which makes management of these Pages much more difficult. However, I expect Google to fix these issues soon and iterate quickly…It’s worth it right now to get in early while the buzz is strong so you can build an audience now on this new network.”
With over 40 million signups in the first few months since Google + launched, adding Business Pages, which many of us have been waiting for, should only boost those user numbers. But will it be the Facebook Killer? Only time will tell.
Ready to jump on the Google + bandwagon with your business? Sign up here.
NOTE: it appears that you must first have a Google account to create a Google + Business Page.
Google + For Businesses: At Long Last, It’s Here
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
Women Owned Businesses Have Come a Long Way But It’s Not Far Enough
Oct 12th
How do women-owned businesses differ from companies owned by men? Not as much as they used to, according to a recent study from the SBA’s Office of Advocacy. “Business ownership no longer can be analyzed simply on the basis of the owner’s gender; businesses owned by women and men more and more share the same general development patterns,” write the authors of “Developments in Women-owned Business, 1997-2007.”
Between 1997 and 2007, the report found, women’s share of total U.S. firms increased from 26 percent to almost 29 percent; during the same time frame, men’s share dropped from 55 percent to 51 percent. As of 2007, the top four revenue-generating industries were identical for businesses owned by women, men, and by women and men together; they were construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, and retail trade.
But there is still one area in which women-owned businesses differ from those owned by men: Women-owned firms were less likely to have employees. In 2007, more than 88 percent were non-employer firms.
Employment is on everyone’s minds right now, and a separate report from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, “Overcoming the Gender Gap: Women Entrepreneurs as Economic Drivers,” suggests that with the right kind of help, women-owned businesses could become drivers of employment and stimulate the economy.
The Kauffman report found some similar gaps between men- and women-owed companies. For starters, while startup companies, especially high-growth startups, are the biggest source of new U.S. jobs, only about 35 percent of startup business owners are women. In addition, their startups are less likely to grow than those owned by men: Just 36 percent of women-owned startups in the report had employees, compared to 44 percent of those owned by men.
Lesa Mitchell, Kauffman Foundation vice president and author of the report, says that while women are breaking through the glass ceiling, they seem to be encountering “glass walls” that keep their businesses from expanding. As a result, three years after startup, just 19.8 percent of women-owned businesses in the Kauffman report make over $100K annually, while 32.8 percent of men-owned companies do.
Of course, some women (and men) may prefer to keep their companies small. But for those who want to grow, what steps would help them? Mitchell says:
1.) Establishing support networks early in the startup process is one way to position your business for growth. Joining the board of a company in your industry is one way to do this.
2.) She also urges successful women entrepreneurs to become role models and mentors for younger ones.
3.) And she urges more networking and collaboration between startups and bigger, more successful firms.
Networking seems to be a common thread when it comes to helping women-owned businesses thrive. In Forbes’ latest list of the best cities for women in business, the cities that topped the list had several things in common: a supportive legal environment, government procurement goals for women- or minority-owned firms, resources like the SBA’s Women’s Business Centers, and the presence of women’s business organizations to provide networking and support.
Women are often called “naturals” at networking, and most women business owners I know are pretty good at it. But to power your business to the next phase, you need to take networking to the next level. Don’t just network within your comfort zone: Get out of it.
Depending on your business’s needs, that might mean hobnobbing with angel investors or even venture capitalists. It might mean getting comfortable at male-dominated industry events or conferences, or meeting key people at companies that are much bigger than yours. Whatever you’re hoping to achieve with your business, there is someone out there who can help you do it—but not if you don’t get out there and meet them.
Image from Christian Kieffer/Shutterstock
Women Owned Businesses Have Come a Long Way But It’s Not Far Enough
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
The web leaders hate typography (but not for long)
Aug 31st
It probably started with HTML, and then Yahoo, of course. But eBay escalated the hatred and Google and Facebook have institutionalized it.
To have lame typography, to avoid opportunities to speak not just with what you say, but how the letters look—this is part of the web’s engineering-first ethos.
Sergey Brin famously said that marketing is the cost you pay for lousy products, and apparently, typography is a variety of marketing.
Sergey’s wrong about marketing, of course (great products are marketing), but doubly wrong about the benefits of typography.
Typography is what sets Apple, at first glance, apart from just about everyone at the mall. Typography is what makes a self-published book often look pale in comparison to a ‘real’ one. Typography (or the lack thereof) is a safety hazard on airplanes (who decided that all the safety labels should be in ALL CAPS)?
The choice of a typeface, the care given to kerning and to readability—it all sends a powerful signal. When your business card is nothing but Arial on a piece of cardboard, you’ve just told people how they ought to think about you… precisely the opposite of what you were trying to do when you made the card in the first place.
The irony here is clear. It was computer technology (particularly Apple) that put typography into the hands of all of us. And it’s computer technology that is relentlessly picking it apart, devaluing expression in a misguided attempt to demonstrate that you’re too busy coding to make anything look trustworthy or delightful. Typekit and other web solutions are trying to address this problem, and it’s pretty clear that the next generation of sophisticated organizations online is going to look a lot better than this one does.
Great typography isn’t as easy as lazy type, but it’s worth way more than it costs—in fact, it’s a world-class bargain. (some typography resources). And a neat tool via Swiss-Miss.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
Live Long and Market: Small Business Branding
Jul 31st
Marketing is the process of communicating your value to your public. Whether it’s a product or service, if what you offer has value and solves a problem, then you need to market it in a way that lets your target audience know just how important it is to their lives.
If marketing is communication, then your brand is a part of the message. According to the American Marketing Association a brand is a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” And everyone can afford to be distinctive (at least on some level) — distinctively simple, distinctively effective, etc.
You have to stand out to the right people (your target audience) for the right reasons (you solve their problem in a way that resonates with them). In other words, your brand – your distinction – is the consistent message about what your product is and what it does. Your logo, your tagline, your key phrases, your service style and your customer service team all advance your brand. The more consistent and frequent the message, the more people hear you.
Who Loves Your Brand the Most?
In “How to Recognize and Reward Brand Advocacy,” Yvonne DiVita makes a distinction between your fans and brand advocates. She says, “Brand advocates do things like write a blog around your product, or tweet about you daily, and faithfully follow you on Facebook.” She says the brand advocate is more devoted than a fan and is “loyal to a fault – all without being asked or compensated.” Sounds like somebody you want on your team.
While marketing seems to come with a lot of terms that make it easy to slip into semantics, Yvonne’s key point resonates with me. She encourages us to find your brand advocates, “understand them, reward them and measure their engagement.” And she provides suggestions on how to get it done.
How Do You Advance Your Brand Online?
If you accept the role of marketing and the impact that branding can have, then you have the choice to advance your message in print as well as online. In “The 6 Biggest Social Media Mistakes Brands Make,” Janet Thaeler discusses the common errors we all make, including the impersonal initial contact. Have you seen or done this before:
- Person finds you (or you find person).
- Person wants to connect with you (or you want to connect with person).
- Person writes you some stiff email to “connect” (or you’re the one writing the “stiff” email).
- Person gets disappointed as you wonder “who is this?” and naturally deflect the interaction (or vice versa).
It’s all in the greeting.
In order to make this conversation work you need a touchstone, a point of conversational contact, a reason to talk that’s a little bigger than just you. Janet says, “The initial contact with someone you hope to work with should be personable….To get a feel for what they are interested in and care about, read their blog and Twitter stream.” Her other five tips are helpful as well. But what if you swear that social media is not the thing for you….
How Do You Advance Your Brand Offline?
Maybe your clients aren’t online and just don’t use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Maybe. In “5 Powerful Alternatives for Social Media Haters,” Ivana Taylor accepts your hatred of social media (I say that in jest) and offers you solutions.
Ivana says, “The number-one benefit marketers found from using social media is brand and company exposure.” But if you discover that your target market doesn’t use social media, then she says “your best bet is to create your own community,” starting with building a list.
Your goal is to create a community, and your email list and email campaign are among the most effective ways to connect and advance that relationship. While I believe in social media, connecting by email is also a solid foundation for business – and laying a foundation always comes first. Ivana also gives advice on how to handle your blog and tips on how to engage your developing community.
In the spirit of Spock (yes, Star Trek) and spoken directly to your business: Live long and market.
Live Long and Market: Small Business Branding
View full post on Small Business News, Tips, Advice – Small Business Trends
How long is your long run?
May 7th
The bank robber may have a long run of just thirty minutes. Stealing money today appears worth it because tomorrow is just too far away to consider.
There are organizations and nations that have been around for hundreds of years and expect to be around for another thousand. They have a long run a little longer than yours.
I think we can agree on what the short run is. The question worth asking your brand, your boss or your family is: what’s the long run? Most of the time, we err on the side of short.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
Hard work vs. Long work
May 3rd
Long work is what the lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms does.
Hard work is what the insightful litigator does when she synthesizes four disparate ideas and comes up with an argument that wins the case–in less than five minutes.
Long work has a storied history. Farmers, hunters, factory workers… Always there was long work required to succeed. For generations, there was a huge benefit that came to those with the stamina and fortitude to do long work.
Hard work is frightening. We shy away from hard work because inherent in hard work is risk. Hard work is hard because you might fail. You can’t fail at long work, you merely show up. You fail at hard work when you don’t make an emotional connection, or when you don’t solve the problem or when you hesitate.
I think it’s worth noting that long work often sets the stage for hard work. If you show up enough and practice enough and learn enough, it’s more likely you will find yourself in a position to do hard work.
It seems, though that no matter how much long work you do, you won’t produce the benefits of hard work unless you are willing to leap.
View full post on Seth’s Blog
Long Lost Marketing Secrets
Apr 22nd
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Long Lost Marketing Secrets
