The Pros And Cons Of Using Twitter For Your Business

With all of the media hype surrounding Twitter; it makes you wonder if the positive benefits of involving your business outweigh the negative. There are many different viewpoints on this topic, which mainly depend on the type of business you are running and whether the features that Twitter offers are what you are looking for.

Twitter: The Pros

Twitter provides a means to connect and network with those in your industry that share the same options and outlooks as you. You can receive steady access to what is being said about your company, your competition, your brand, your employees and your product. Twitter gives you the chance to receive instant access to unlimited research, ideas and material relating to what intrigues you or what your company does. You can use Twitter to expand your business blog into a different realm, and also provide immediate updates. Twitter can also be used as an open market for finding employees, suppliers, partners, vendors and even technical support.

Twitter: The Cons

If you are looking to promote your company directly to the desired consumer, Twitter may not be the right source for you. Narrowing down your target audience will be difficult, but it can provide an avenue for them to reach your website. Looking to advertise your company? Twitter has yet to develop an advertising program. However, an effective entrepreneur can manage to incorporate promoting their products or services into their tweets. Twitter also has a low retention rate of 50 percent, which means that one of two people that visit your Twitter profile may never look at it again. So the challenge is providing information and presenting it in an appealing fashion that will reel in your potential clients.

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Business Planning – The Key to Success

One of the most beneficial and vital documents you can prepare for your business is a business plan. Many people think that business planning is only necessary if you plan on seeking financing for your small business. Banks will almost always require a method to display your plan has been thought out. If for that reason only, it should illustrate why it’s so imperative to have some sort of business planning in place before you start executing.

Proper business planning forces you to think of issues that may have never crossed your mind if they weren’t brought up beforehand. Issues like insurance, retirement plans, 5 year expansion plans, loss mitigation, employee benefits, and many other aspects all must be laid out on paper. This also gives you something to fall back on and check yourself against from time to time. Owning a small business is chaos. It requires long hours, hard work, dedication, and self sacrifice. By putting together some sort of business planning before you are hit with the tidal wave of business ownership, you have written your own reference guide for what’s to come.

It also makes it easier to obtain financing if you do end up needing it. Business planning requires an in depth market analysis of your products or services, competition, and demographic. If nothing more, you will gain an incredible in depth knowledge of your customer base and your market competition that you will soon be going head to head with.

There are plenty of references available to you to help you conduct business planning as well so don’t see it as a daunting task. It is in depth and time consuming, yes, but it will pay dividends by the time you have a complete final draft. With mentors, small business owners groups and clubs, and innumerable books and websites on the subject, there are plenty of things to provide you a basic outline to reference and follow. Consider getting in touch with businesses that may be willing to give you a hand with information and tips for properly planning your business. Mentors can be found nationwide and there’s bound to be one that has experience in your field. If you can’t find one, though, it’s not the end of the world. Plenty of information is available on many different forms of business. In the end, having a business plan is one of the absolute best things you can do for your up and coming company.

Business Ethics – Become More Conscience Focused

Business ethics are a side of ethics that play into the business world. When developing your business structure, it is key to know where your business stands on issues that may arise and how you want your business portrayed to the public. Since the turn of the 21st century, businesses have become more conscience players in the economy and are being held more accountable for their actions. One of the prime examples of this is the “green movement” and consumers willing to pay a little more to support an ethically moral business model.

You don’t have to be a green company to make yourself known that you keep employees and yourself morally responsible. Business ethics come into play on a much larger scale once you start hiring employees as well. It’s easy for you to know where you stand but every employee is now a face and personality that represents your brand to the public. It is imperative to have your ethics lined out, usually in some form of employee handbook, so that everyone can be on the same page.
If you lay out what is considered to be unethical or unmoral to your company, you will have a business ethics code to hold your employees by. If you were a green company like one that was mentioned earlier, you may find it unethical to use anything but energy efficient light bulbs in your office. It sounds bizarre but being that you’ve created an environmentally friendly company, it’s not farfetched. Unless you spell that out, though, there’s no way for the person whose responsibility it is to order light bulbs to know it was unacceptable.

The biggest issue is that your business will gain a reputation just by being in business. It’s how you decide your company makes money and to what extent you are willing to take it to that the issue of business ethics is raised. Ethics come into play in almost every aspect of business from wages paid to products sold. If you own a retail shop, you should determine the ethics behind the companies of the products you carry. Huge multi-million dollar companies have been fined countless times for unethical business practices as well as small businesses losing customers because they gain a bad reputation in the area in which they work. Identifying early on what is acceptable and where the line is drawn ethically for your company can help build a positive relationship with your community.

Business Studies Resources

Business Networking - Building your Network

Business networking is one of the most beneficial things you can do as a small business owner. Business owners are consumers as well and building your network with owners like yourself will help to build a community that you can draw on each other’s influences and experiences. Furthermore, this helps to work towards goals that can help out small business as a whole in your neighborhood.

To help you get on your way to strong business networking, keep in mind the following tips and tricks. Networking is all about authenticity and being genuine. It’s about seeing how you can help others and, in turn, they will see how they can help you. Visit as many groups as you can that spark your interest. They were created with the purpose of helping business owners network and build relationships so take advantage of them. Once you find a group or two that you enjoy, seek out volunteer opportunities in them. Use it as an opportunity to become more visible while giving back to the support channels that have helped you out.

When conversation arises, ask open ended questions of other small business owners. This opens up discussion between everyone. Use these discussions to display that you can be a powerful resource to them in their business networking contacts. It will keep you visible and others will turn to you first when they need help. In turn, it will create a powerful network for yourself when you need someone to turn to for suggestions and ideas. Be able to answer the question, “how can I help you?” Too often, we’re approached in these types of settings and help is offered to us but we’re not exactly sure what we need. Going in with a purpose will help people become more effective towards your goal.

The contacts and referrals you get from strong business networking can be one of the most valuable assets you can create for your small business. Best of all, the cost is minimal if anything at all. Make sure that you help others and are genuine and they will return the favor tenfold. Treat their referrals with respect as you are now a reflection on them and help out anyone that they refer to you. There’s an honor and trust that goes unspoken between small business owners across the globe. By treating others with dignity, you can utilize the best resource out there that any small business owner could ask for.

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Business Cycles – Understanding is Key to Success

Regardless of how big or small your company is, it is and always will be affected by business cycles. These cycles happen on a small aspect as well as a global economical level. By furthering your understanding of what goes on during them, you can better position your company to adapt.

On the small end of business cycles, there are busy and slow seasons. The most extreme example of this and a key to illustrate the point is a ski resort in Colorado. Their business cycles, or seasons, revolve around the weather with the peak being the holidays from Christmas to just after New Year’s. Obviously, they are so slow that they close from late spring to early fall. Almost every business has a peak season and a slow season so it’s important to identify what those are in your line of service or sales. With this knowledge, you can help plan your advertising budget better as well as labor needs, control hours of business, and anything else needed to adjust to the change.

On the bigger scale are the economic business cycles we face as an economy. In this fashion, the cycles have to do with production and overall economic activity. It’s usually measured by gross domestic product. The term business cycles have actually come under fire since there is no mechanical or predictable pattern that they follow, making them not a true cycle. Many now refer to them as economic fluctuations for this reason but the definitions are the same and they both refer to the same thing. The fluctuation periods are referred to as economic growth when they are in an increasing level of development and economic recession when they are in a contracting level of development.

There are many different theories that play into business cycles and it’s the reason behind most of our macroeconomics classes in college. Since the contraction or recessed effects of the cycle can be painful to their citizens of many developed countries, many governments have moved to make it their responsibility to attempt to mitigate the business cycle as much as possible. There are alternate views, outside of the most widely accepted expanding and contracting, as to the reasons behind economic growth and recession as well. Everything from politics to general creation of inflation all comes into play when dealing with economic concerns on this level. But most importantly, it is important to understand that there is a global cycle of business that can affect your bottom line as well.

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Best Tips for Marketing – Secrets for Success

Marketing is one of the most important elements in any business. You could offer the best product or service the world has ever seen but without the ability to get it in front of customers, it will go nowhere. Taking some of the best tips for marketing will help to get your name in front of potential clients to allow you to start building your brand.

One of the best tips for marketing available to you at no cost is to get in front of people either on the radio or on TV. You can take this as far as getting your own TV show or webcast to go on a video site like YouTube. If this doesn’t seem feasible, consider getting in touch with programs like local talk shows and news. These types are usually always looking for experts they can call on for their programming. This can also tie together a huge marketing piece, your own website. Use your website to tell your story and the products and services you offer. If you’ve made web videos, link them all to the site and link the site in all your videos. You are slowly building a brand!

One of the other best tips for marketing is to give lessons or otherwise get involved in your community. There are many customers out there who still want to support the small businesses of the world, especially the ones in their community. By building brand awareness in your local neighborhood, you start to become a recognized brand. If you offer a service, consider contributing free lessons to the local library or non-profits in the area. If you offer a product, consider making donations to local food banks and non-profits that could benefit from it or just donate monetarily. These are also a tax deduction!

Finally, one of the last best tips for marketing is to use every outgoing piece of paper and outgoing message as a promotional piece for your business. Print up company letterhead, business cards, stamps, and everything else you can put your name on. Get pens with your name on to put at the counter so if people accidentally walk off with them, they’re stamped with your name on it. The most important element in marketing is, simply, to get your name and business philosophy in front of as many people as you can. Aggressively market your name and service to get your business going.

Principles of Marketing

Best Tips for Marketing – Secrets for Success

Marketing is one of the most important elements in any business. You could offer the best product or service the world has ever seen but without the ability to get it in front of customers, it will go nowhere. Taking some of the best tips for marketing will help to get your name in front of potential clients to allow you to start building your brand.

One of the best tips for marketing available to you at no cost is to get in front of people either on the radio or on TV. You can take this as far as getting your own TV show or webcast to go on a video site like YouTube. If this doesn’t seem feasible, consider getting in touch with programs like local talk shows and news. These types are usually always looking for experts they can call on for their programming. This can also tie together a huge marketing piece, your own website. Use your website to tell your story and the products and services you offer. If you’ve made web videos, link them all to the site and link the site in all your videos. You are slowly building a brand!

One of the other best tips for marketing is to give lessons or otherwise get involved in your community. There are many customers out there who still want to support the small businesses of the world, especially the ones in their community. By building brand awareness in your local neighborhood, you start to become a recognized brand. If you offer a service, consider contributing free lessons to the local library or non-profits in the area. If you offer a product, consider making donations to local food banks and non-profits that could benefit from it or just donate monetarily. These are also a tax deduction!

Finally, one of the last best tips for marketing is to use every outgoing piece of paper and outgoing message as a promotional piece for your business. Print up company letterhead, business cards, stamps, and everything else you can put your name on. Get pens with your name on to put at the counter so if people accidentally walk off with them, they’re stamped with your name on it. The most important element in marketing is, simply, to get your name and business philosophy in front of as many people as you can. Aggressively market your name and service to get your business going.

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