We've distilled the business intelligence from a wide variety of social commerce and marketing reports so that you can give your small business marketing strategy a swift kick in the pants.
Small Business Labs' Steve King responds to recent negative articles about Twitter, suggesting that small businesses need to take a balanced view: Twitter isn't a silver bullet but is right for some.
Consultant Lena West of the website xynoMedia gives three reasons why small businesses need to have a well-developed Web site to function as home base for their social media marketing efforts.
Marketing consultant Susan Payton suggests five ways you can re-use the same piece of online content to generate additional traffic for your small business.
Business journalist David Cotriss analyzes the success of a social media campaign by the Docker pants brand and shows how small businesses can use online contests in a similar way.
Gail Goodman of social media marketing firm Constant Contact provides a primer for small businesses on how to use video on the Web to market their products and services.
Online marketing consultant Lisa Barone reports on recent research showing that SMBs using social media are seeing real returns, and better results than larger companies using social media.
Social media tools can help small businesses communicate more effectively internally. Leyl Master Black of Mashable rounds up eight great social collaboration tools.
Mashable associate editor Erica Swallow offers five ways to liven up your small business Twitter stream to attract and hold followers.
Laurie McCabe and Sanjeev Aggarwal of the SMB Group report on a survey of 750 SMB decision makers about how they're using social media. Should you be doing what they're doing?
Small Business Trends reviewer TJ McCue looks at WiseStamp, a utility that adds buttons to an email signature that link recipients to your Twitter, Facebook or other social media sites.
Sharlyn Lauby of the website Mashable explains in detail how even small businesses can use a LinkedIn company page to promote their company and advertise for recruits.
Zachary Sniderman of the website Mashable offers his four top tips for small businesses that want to create podcasts, prerecorded 'radio shows' posted at your website or Apple's iTunes music store.
Manage projects for free; build Web forms; and join a social networking site for small business entrepreneurs. These awesome Web tools that won’t cost you a penny.
Internet marketing consultant Pam Moore makes the point that small businesses need to have a plan and objectives for using social media marketing and need to be able to measure return on investment.
The Wall Street Journal reports that many small b2b businesses are trying to market themselves using Facebook and other social media sites, but some are having very limited success or none at all.
In this roundup of recent articles and blog posts, Small Business Trends casts a sometimes hard light on the question of whether and how much small businesses should be relying on social media for marketing.
SMB technology consultant Laurie McCabe of The SMB Group blogs about the importance of planning for small businesses to ensure they get optimum results from social media.
Mashable's Leyl Master Black explains how and when to use different kinds of plugins at your website that let visitors interact with Facebook and become advocates for your products and brand.
Analysis of recent research in the Network Solutions State of Small Business report, suggesting a trend may have begun for small businesses to use Facebook as their main Web presence.
Small Business Trends rounds up key articles and blog posts on social media marketing in what it calls "the ultimate guide" to social media for small businesses.
Mashable's Jolie O'Dell offers a primer on adding social sharing buttons to your small business website - a way for visitors to immediately respond to your pages at a social media site.
PC magazine spotlights a new social network site for small businesses from SohoOS, an Israeli company that also makes a free integrated software suite for small businesses.
Entrepreneur magazine's Jamie Cooper reports on a small business in Portland, Oregon that ran into trouble with a Groupon offer that was too generous and too successful.
Leyl Master Black of the website Mashable offers seven tips on how to save time on Twitter to ensure you have the time to do it well.
A new social networking service called GageIn aims to make it easier for companies to gather and track business info they need all from one location.
Journalist and author Susan Kuchinskas, herself a Facebook user, explains recent changes to the social media site and what small businesses should do in response.
Should you create a brand page for your small business brand? Maybe not, says marketing consultant Lisa Barone - even though Facebook has recently improved the features of its brand pages.
Marketing communications consultant Susan Gunelius offers 10 'laws' of social media marketing to help SMBs understand how to make the most of their investments in social media.
Small Business Trends' Lisa Barone explains recent chanages to the Facebook brand pages small businesses use to market themselves and shows how to take advantage of the improvements.
Social media offers a great way to make new relationships but how do you convert them into useful business connections? Entrepreneur and author Deborah Shane explains how she did it.
Social media marketing consultant Lena West of xynoMedia says success with social media for SMBs depends on a "formula," which she reveals in this article.
Social networking advocates say email marketing is dead. Email marketing services firms say the two are complementary. Which should you be using? One or both?
Small Business Trends' Ivana Taylor gives thumbs up to The Network Is Your Customer: 5 Strategies to Thrive in a Digital Age by David L. Rogers. The focus is customer behavior on the Net and how to exploit it.
Small Business Trends rounds up recent articles from a variety of online sources on how small businesses can improve their use of blogging and social media for online marketing.
Internet marketing expert Lisa Baron offers analysis of recent research from Adology about which social media sites SMBs use and get most benefit from.
Entrepreneur and educator Chris Brogan shares tips for using social media and other digital tricks to jazz up presentations.
Small Business Trends offers its weekly roundup of tech stories of interest to small businesses, this week focusing on social media and blogging. (With links to stories.)
Social media marketing guru Lisa Barone blogs about recent changes at Foursquare, the geolocation social media site, designed to lure small business owners to join. Should you join?
Just as company recruiters considering new hires consult the Web, so do customers looking for a new supplier. If the first thing they see about you there is negative, they'll run the other way.
Small Business Trends rounds up articles and blog posts from many sources to help small businesses figure out whether they should be jumping on the Twitter bandwagon and, if so, how they should go about it.
Susan Gunelius, CEO of a marketing communications firm, describes in five steps how SMBs can build their brand using social media sites such as Facebook.
Read this if you're wondering whether your small business should jump into - or expand its use of - social media marketing. The survey shows many SMBs are already using it to good effect , and most plan to use it more.
Entrepreneur and social media expert Starr Hall predicts the ten top social media trends that will impact SMBs in 2011.
Entrepreneur magazine's Jason Fell spotlights three small businesses that have used social media marketing effectively to drive sales.
Lisa Barone reports on a new study showing most small businesses still rely heavily on their websites and e-mail for marketing - but that social media marketing is coming on strong.
A video in which smallbiztechnology.com editor Ramon Ray meets with Guardian Life Insurance companies to discuss the best way to use social media for marketing.
Should your small business be using to Twitter as a social media marketing tool? This article in Small Business Labs says probably not.
Groupon, the online couponing service that lets small businesses offer special deals to members, is a hot item in social media marketing, but learn how to use it well or beware the consequences.
Small businesses no longer able to ignore the siren call of social media should read this piece designed to get them thinking about it along the right lines and planning.
