business

Are Facebook Investors Playing Russian Roulette?

Ross | May 22nd, 2012

Although Facebook’s stock price has fallen well below its IPO price of $38 per share, many people agree that the stock is still significantly overpriced. Facebook stock is trading at 57 times projected earnings (compared to 14 for Google and 12 for Apple). There is precedent for a high forward-year projected earnings (P/E) ratio. For [...]

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Small Business Pinterest Starter Guide

Ross | May 16th, 2012

Are you wondering how you can leverage Pinterest for your small business? Pinterest is currently one of the hotest websites. For some businesses, Pinterest is delivering more user trafic than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined. For those of you who haven’t heard of Pinterest, here’s a brief summary: Pinterest is a free social sharing site [...]

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Small Business Spotlight of the Week: AppMonsta

Amanda | May 16th, 2012

I was recently blessed with an iPhone and have fallen into the world of apps.  Lord knows all of us here at the cS offices love our apps.  Just last week Ross insisted all of us download SayHi Translate and speak to him in Swedish.  This is a true story, I encourage all of you [...]

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Dear Mentee

Mike | May 15th, 2012

Hi. I’m Mike. Yesterday Amanda posted an article in which she talked about the experience of professional life for a young person just starting out in her career. Well, as of tomorrow Amanda has been working at crowdSPRING for one year (note to self: get cake for Amanda); for the first few months she was an unpaid [...]

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Dear Mentor

Amanda | May 14th, 2012

Hi.  I’m Amanda. I know you’ve seen me in and out of these parts for a little over a year now, but here’s a formal introduction: I’m 22-years-old and I just graduated from college.  I’ve been fortunate to have three internships during my undergrad years.  My tenure at crowdSPRING has included working on PR, marketing, [...]

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Growing Your Small Business Using Social Media: The Facts

Ross | May 9th, 2012

We’re previously written about ways that small businesses are using social media, how businesses can leverage social media to deliver customer service, and the innovative ways some businesses use social media. There’s no clear consensus about social commerce and whether businesses should invest marketing dollars in social media. For example, Forrester Research, last year, released [...]

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Tips for small business: Negotiating With the New Recruit

Mike | May 7th, 2012

Last year, I wrote a couple of posts about the process of hiring new employees and what applicants can do to help. Recruiting and hiring can be one of the more painful aspects to running a small business, but job applicants can go far to ease the process for those doing the hiring and, at [...]

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Lean Marketing: Delivering Customer Service via Social Media

Mike | April 30th, 2012

We write often about the power of great customer service and share ideas for how to engage with customers. improve delivery, and analyze your performance in this crucial arena. There are reasonably priced tools aplenty which can help you provide better service to your customers: help-desk software like Zendesk, virtual call center services such as [...]

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Free Advice for: The New York Times iPad App

Mike | March 19th, 2012

I am a crank. There, I said it. Around the cS offices, I have a reputation as a curmudgeon and grouch. I have never been slow to voice an opinion, file a complaint, or take a company to task for everything from a unreliable product to poor customer service. This post is intended as the first [...]

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DIY Branding, Self-published Fame, and Romantic Trolls

Mike | January 30th, 2012

Amanda Hocking is a star of the publishing world. Last year she signed a 4-book, $2 million dollar deal with St. Martin’s Press, one of the largest publishing houses in the world. While in itself, this is not unusual – authors become best-sellers every day, and publishing houses announce contracts with authors just as often, [...]

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