Archive for the ‘social media’ Category

Twitter Link Roundup #120 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Thursday, February 16th, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The video above shows Australian Magician James Galea performing an unbelievable magic trick with a deck of cards. How does he do that?

The Zappos Effect: 5 Great Customer Service Ideas – http://hub.am/yh0hLq

5 Ways to Use Social Media and Your Online Presence to Drive People Offline – http://bit.ly/wuUkMf

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Should I Get Married? – http://bit.ly/y3eS9q

Functions over Titles – http://awe.sm/5fI9Z

Agreeable Guys* Finish Last – http://bit.ly/zqA34S

10 Things Entrepreneurs Can Learn From Politicians – http://bit.ly/z68bxM

Ron Conway is a Silicon Valley startup’s best friend – http://bit.ly/xtt9L7

Zap your brain and get focused quickly. If it were only this easy – http://bit.ly/yl5kYS

The Three Things That Got Fab.com Two Million Users In Seven Months – http://read.bi/wdzAyR

Functions over Titles – http://awe.sm/5fI9Z

Does Startup Density Predict Success? – http://bit.ly/x8RfdY

Between failure and Facebook – http://bit.ly/wAE6BD

The Zappos Effect: 5 Great Customer Service Ideas – http://hub.am/yh0hLq

4 Entrepreneurial Lessons Learned From Self-Publishing My First Book – http://bit.ly/AmJBHT

Agreeable Guys* Finish Last – http://bit.ly/zqA34S

Hit men, click whores, and paid apologists: Welcome to the Silicon Cesspool – http://bit.ly/yGFips

We assume that brainstorming works pretty well to solve most problems. But does it really work? – http://nyr.kr/AbiEmG

The mad dash to remove something before the deadline – http://bit.ly/A94VTR

The Three Things That Got Fab.com Two Million Users In Seven Months – http://read.bi/wdzAyR

Is Bitcoin, once the next shiny thing, on its last breaths? – http://bit.ly/wf8fBR

50 Fresh High-Quality Free Fonts for Your Designs – http://bit.ly/wKvinq

20 Free Fonts Used In Iconic Movies – http://bit.ly/zQudPt

12 Things I Have Learned After 7 Years of Freelancing – http://bit.ly/xUtycT

50 Useful and Fresh Photoshop Tutorials – http://bit.ly/xhiFE2

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Twitter Link Roundup #119 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The image to the left is a fun look at what a movie poster for an Oscar-nominated film would be like if it literally wanted to communicate what the movie was about. More fun posters in the Other section below.

8 Legal Steps for Starting Your Business – http://on.mash.to/AdW6Rn

Could Your Business Survive Without You? – http://bit.ly/ApHXux

Good tips on what to say when you fire someone (all biz owners must be comfortable doing this) – http://bit.ly/z1wLNw

Small Biz and Startup Tips: 5 Ideas to Prepare for an Economic Recovery – http://bit.ly/x64Zme

The Power of the Rule of Three in Marketing Your Small Business – http://bit.ly/wqmtu5

The Perpetually Vexing Problem of Hiring Programmers – http://bit.ly/w5QTm2

5 Reasons The Windy City is a Great Place for Startups – http://j.mp/zh4Zw8

How to build your startup without learning code – http://bit.ly/yPw6Vq

The Chicago FireStarter Venture Capital Fund – http://bit.ly/ytkmoa

The Perpetually Vexing Problem of Hiring Programmers – http://bit.ly/w5QTm2

SaaS: Change starts easy and then gets really hard – http://bit.ly/wZqTSt

Could Your Business Survive Without You? – http://bit.ly/ApHXux

8 Legal Steps for Starting Your Business – http://on.mash.to/AdW6Rn

This was the right response from Path – http://bit.ly/zNiKIi

Small Biz and Startup Tips: 5 Ideas to Prepare for an Economic Recovery – http://bit.ly/x64Zme

The Power of the Rule of Three in Marketing Your Small Business – http://bit.ly/wqmtu5

Good tips on what to say when you fire someone (all biz owners must be comfortable doing this) – http://bit.ly/z1wLNw

Pinterest is quietly generating revenue by modifying user submitted pins – http://bit.ly/xa9Aj5

When did advertising get so small? – http://bit.ly/xd0S8c

Good to see companies focus on real advertising metrics – http://bit.ly/xoHbOU

Silly to reach conclusions based on results of a study surveying 200 people (about twitter addiction) – http://bit.ly/yx4ssE

Is traffic from StumbleUpon just “noise”? – http://bit.ly/x6Sa9W

This was the right response from Path – http://bit.ly/zNiKIi

Yelp advertising is a rip-off for small advertisers – http://bit.ly/yraI9X

Only 1 “Top Brand” Has Created A Google+ Page In The Past Two Months, Report Says – http://bit.ly/yugLbG

Crowdsourcing has a longer-term payoff than originally thought: study – http://smrt.io/xCfZSm

Pinterest continues to impress with referral traffic – http://bit.ly/zHheNr

Those Millions on Facebook? Some May Not Actually Visit – http://nyti.ms/Af9DAG

Those Millions On Facebook? They Actually Visit, And It’s Not A Huge Deal Anyway. – http://tcrn.ch/yDQUPv

Rice University And OpenStax Announce First Open-Source Textbooks – http://tcrn.ch/ytEUYk

AT&T, Google Among The Biggest Online Advertisers — comScore – http://tcrn.ch/A2fKGT

70 Excellent Adobe Illustrator Tutorials – http://bit.ly/yZimmK

50 Illustrator Tutorials To Create High Quality Icons – http://bit.ly/wNiIP1

How to Stop Yourself from Stealing from Your Design Gurus – http://bit.ly/yhUJ8j

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Twitter Link Roundup #118 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The video above is a new Super Bowl commercial from Honda, featuring Matthew Broderick and reminding us how much we loved Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers – http://t.co/3UxbuL0b

Gamification: The buzzword that can ruin your apps and business – http://t.co/bdsJOO6q

Fail Your Way to Success – http://t.co/NZIGRSUA

Got Early Startup Competition? Here’s Why I Think You’re Fine – http://t.co/VvfDsrZP

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Geben Communication - http://t.co/8OpJiC5o

Fail Your Way to Success – http://t.co/NZIGRSUA

Hiring for Lean Startups: The First Few Hires – http://t.co/1T5hVqFh

Outsourcing, crowdsourcing and crowdSPRING – http://t.co/DOAMW5nc

Ignore TechCrunch, Don’t skip your MVP, and be Data-Driven – http://t.co/mqOnDbs5

Solid advice for entrepreneurs – Startups are not a chess game – http://t.co/L8RI5z4y

Got Early Startup Competition? Here’s Why I Think You’re Fine – http://t.co/VvfDsrZP

What Zappos Can Teach You About Becoming Irresistible to Customers – http://t.co/3UxbuL0b

When has a consumer startup hit product/market fit? – http://t.co/Qb5Z5nXX

…Because Most SEOs Don’t Know What Strategy Means – http://t.co/50xVysi2

Gamification: The buzzword that can ruin your apps and business – http://t.co/bdsJOO6q

Tony Hsieh’s new $350 million startup – http://t.co/UbKfBVm0

To-Do Lists Don’t Work – http://t.co/huDb4pCd

Google+ demographics are predictable – http://t.co/4SuDAL0M

Study: Only 1% of Facebook ‘Fans’ Engage With Brands - http://t.co/C0dCY2UH

Not surprising to see ad agencies shedding employees - http://t.co/kGx6Jo2q

Why Necessity Will Soon Make Facebook The World’s Largest Mobile Ad Network – http://t.co/U7pHhIR9

Klout means nothing, because attention is not influence – http://t.co/7KclyNws

Aging in Adland: The Gray-Hair Phobia That’s Hindering Older Execs – http://t.co/btNQGAZJ

Facebook Pads Its Lead Over Yahoo in Online Display Ads With 28% of Market – http://t.co/oseZI92P

Pinterest Rivals Twitter in Referral Traffic – http://t.co/7bEJrlQU

Seven observations on the 2012 Super Bowl ads – http://t.co/AA9QA2ie

…Because Most SEOs Don’t Know What Strategy Means – http://t.co/50xVysi2

A very handy guide to mobile advertising – http://t.co/ffWgOvWb

Report: Search Ad Spend To Rise 27% In 2012 – http://t.co/AyQeTPKA

Pinterest Becomes Top Traffic Driver for Retailers [INFOGRAPHIC] – http://t.co/2I1tXTMc

41 New and Fresh Fonts for Your Design Projects – http://t.co/954Anu7O

55 Fresh And Free Texture Packs To Spice Up Your Designs – http://t.co/sU2LXkZb

Free High Quality Leather Textures for your Design – http://t.co/yeyb7Ftp

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Twitter Link Roundup #117 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The image above is a fun look at bottled water from Apple – if Apple made bottled water. That post, and other interesting posts are in the “Other” section below.

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (tips for businesses on leveraging crowdsourcing) - http://bit.ly/wxqtb5

Starting a new biz with a friend? Good interview with @mike_samson about biz w/ friends – http://bit.ly/wBFfBv

Women Small Business Owners – America’s New job Creators [infographic] – http://t.co/74nUB76D

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Studyers -http://bit.ly/wy7Qty

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Twittapolls – http://t.co/aFHWJTmq

The One “Process” Every Startup Should Have - http://perfor.ms/jJ3Bzz

Love this post and agree 100% about need to promote intense debate among teams - http://bit.ly/zNbohI

Starting a new biz with a friend? Good interview with @mike_samson about biz w/ friends - http://bit.ly/wBFfBv

ExcelerateLabs ranked in the top Startup Incubators by Forbes – http://t.co/loB7YTes

Silicon Valley’s New Secret Weapon: Designers Who Found Startups – http://t.co/i8Vq3xl3

“If Willy Wonka built a financial institution, instead of a chocolate factory, it would look something like Square.” – http://t.co/icQhWPI3

You’re Mentoring the Wrong Way – http://t.co/2wWUC2ZQ

These Guys Launched A Startup For Entrepreneurs And Then Got Turned Away By Entrepreneurs – http://t.co/YWoM6gI0

When has a consumer startup hit product/market fit? -http://perfor.ms/vWhc5w

How to Develop Your Fund Raising Strategy – http://t.co/l4dOckDn

The best definition of entrepreneurship, in 25 words – http://t.co/lUKmQO0d

Venture capital investing hits 10-year peak, sparking bubble talk – http://t.co/IAI1IJKk

To Find Happiness, Forget About Passion – http://t.co/IAXq064F

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (tips for businesses on leveraging crowdsourcing) - http://bit.ly/wxqtb5

Online Ad Spending to Surpass Print for First Time in 2012 -http://on.mash.to/w4dv2J

Mobile-Ad Spending Projected to Reach $2.61B in 2012 - http://bit.ly/wFv8KO

Pinterest Demographic Data: The Marketers Guide to People Who Pin - http://bit.ly/x7xkYS

Facebook Now Earns 23% More Per Impression Than In Q1 2011 – http://t.co/czMMI45P

Why Startups Shouldn’t Hire PR Firms – http://t.co/D8kFztzL

Big Firms Try Crowdsourcing – http://t.co/M5XFnBF0

Study: Why Do People Use Facebook? – http://t.co/QEoLTL66

I don’t agree w/ @benkunz – obscure price increases that trick customers are not brilliant – http://t.co/hakIhSHK

Why You Ought to Throw Away Your Vanity Metrics for These 5 Customer Metrics – http://t.co/Tzd95hKL

Google+ demographics are predictable - http://bit.ly/AAjf43

Interesting post from @bbhlabs about the digital revolution & whether we’ve overstated its impact - http://bit.ly/w4bFSJ

Crowdsourcing: a 7+7 Primer (tips for businesses on leveraging crowdsourcing) - http://bit.ly/wxqtb5

50 Hilarious Printed Ads Guaranteed To Make You Laugh -http://bit.ly/ABMoaJ

25 New Fonts for Graphic & Web Designers – Download Now -http://bit.ly/zBy2Ou

40 Superb Free Fonts for Your Next Typographic Project – http://bit.ly/zA5WGJ

50 Great Adobe Photoshop Tutorials That Every Designer Should Know About – http://t.co/IB2ngprh

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12 Questions: Meet Vinay and Asha (India)

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

In our 12 Questions blog series, we feature interviews with someone from the crowdSPRING community. For these interviews, we pick people who add value to our community – in the blog, in the forums, in the projects. Plainly – activities that make crowdSPRING a better community. Be professional, treat others with respect, help us build something very special, and we’ll take notice.

We’re very proud to feature Vinay and Asha (crowdSPRING username: Knifeonbutter) today. Vinay and Asha live and work in Goa, India.

1. Please tell us about yourselves.

We have traveled around the world, working in places as far and diverse as Fiji Islands and Dubai, not to mention all the cities across India. We now reside in Goa, dream beaches, sun,sand, coco feni, and like to pretend to work hard. Ideas fortunately , winning ideas save the day for us on sites such as yours. We just love crowdSPRING.

2. How did you become interested in writing?

We are both writers from the day we left college, and have worked with top 10 ad agency networks. It all started in school, when the teachers noticed we had a flair for writing, however, the idea lightbulbs started glowing, later on, after 3 years of hard, rigorous college education in disciplines as strange as physics and home sciences.

3. Who/what are some of the biggest influences on your writing?

David Ogilvy for sure. He was the greatest at one time. We never studied literature, so
we can’t quote Shakespeare. We are more fascinated with Adworld writers, Paul Hegarty, and creators like the Saatchi brothers.

(more…)

Twitter Link Roundup #116 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Friday, January 13th, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The video above contains 160 of the best one liners from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies. That post, and other interesting posts are in the “Other” section below.

Small Businesses Spending More And More On Social Media – http://bit.ly/wvg6rw

Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Days – http://bit.ly/w2aCvA

Good interview with Mike Samson by @butleronbiz about biz w/ friends – bit.ly/wBFfBv

Five kinds of work to farm out to the crowd – http://bit.ly/Az9JmC

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips – http://bit.ly/wZETZN

Give the Users What They Really Want – http://perfor.ms/tWUUnD

Good suggestions from @stoweboyd on handling customer service questions and issues – http://t.co/80Fc5ocd

Interesting and good read, especially for women … Confidence is a Numbers Game – http://bit.ly/w1zaqB

10 things entrepreneurs can learn from chefs – http://bit.ly/AyAln3

Mark Cuban’s 12 Rules for Startups – http://bit.ly/wVvAVK

What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – Eboo Patel – http://t.co/ZaotKCvl

What history teaches us about startup incubators – http://bit.ly/w7vLYB

Why You Can’t Hire – http://t.co/5E9bi0tV

Good suggestions from @stoweboyd on handling customer service questions and issues – http://t.co/80Fc5ocd

4 Skills Every Startup Employee Needs – http://bit.ly/ynUZIr

When To Get Rid of Your MVP – http://bit.ly/AgEek6

When Reviewing A New Idea, Never Forget Its First Impression – http://onforb.es/yBYqmJ

The power of failing – http://t.co/KCxzb69f

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips – http://bit.ly/wZETZN

Five kinds of work to farm out to the crowd – http://bit.ly/Az9JmC

Why do we pay sales commissions? – http://bit.ly/yTEoDi

Give the Users What They Really Want – http://perfor.ms/tWUUnD

Interesting and good read, especially for women … Confidence is a Numbers Game – http://bit.ly/w1zaqB

Give Your Employees Unlimited Vacation Days – http://bit.ly/w2aCvA

Smart: A Man. A Van. A Surprising Business Plan. – http://n.pr/w5KGsB

Good interview with Mike Samson by @butleronbizabout biz w/ friends – bit.ly/wBFfBv

Small Businesses Spending More And More On Social Media – http://bit.ly/wvg6rw

Worst Use Of Social Media of 2012: Boners BBQ – http://bit.ly/zcrHYf

It’s no secret that visitor data measured by Alexa, Compete and others is flat our wrong – http://mz.cm/wXaQ4K

Good LeWeb talk by Jeremiah Owyang about scaling your business to leverage social media – http://bit.ly/x1g7t9

PR to come to grips with Data (or not) – http://bit.ly/yLg6ca

Interesting and good read, especially for women … Confidence is a Numbers Game – http://bit.ly/w1zaqB

Pinterest for Brands: 5 Hot Tips – http://bit.ly/wZETZN

Google’s Results Get More Personal With “Search Plus Your World” – http://selnd.com/ynKBiD

Wow – $99,344,382 pledged on Kickstarter in 2011. The Year in Kickstarter – http://j.mp/xmuEHu

New High-Quality Free Fonts – http://bit.ly/ybWRte

40+ Fresh And Useful Adobe Illustrator Tutorials – http://t.co/Ip3CGZBY

50+ Creative collection of business cards – http://bit.ly/xuaAIJ

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Small Businesses Spending More And More On Social Media

Tuesday, January 10th, 2012

According to a newly released study from Borrell Associates, small businesses are spending more of their budgets on social media. In fact, small and medium size businesses expect to spend nearly as much on social media as they do on search engine marketing (see table below).

This is not surprising and confirmed by other recent survey data, including a survey from StrongMail on 2012 marketing trends). Although the survey data is inconclusive and often conflicting, most surveys report that 40 to 70 percent of small and medium size businesses are using social media. Non-survey data tends to support those results (58.2 percent of SMBs have a presence on social media networks, according to Palore – but these numbers are not clear-cut because between 40 and 50 percent of the businesses who self-identify as using social media on Facebook, for example, have little or no activity there).

Perhaps the most important piece of data (other than adoption) concerns the methods businesses use to measure success in social media. Although it’s not clear how most businesses track this – many use customer acquisition as the key success metric. Fans/friends/followers are also an important metric (see graph below).

How active is your small business on social networks and how do you measure success? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Twitter Link Roundup #115 – Small Business, Social Media, Design, Copywriting, Marketing And More

Thursday, January 5th, 2012

Every day on the crowdSPRING Twitter account and on my own Twitter account, I post links to posts or videos I enjoyed reading or viewing. These posts and videos are about logo design, web design, startups, entrepreneurship, small business, leadership, social media, marketing, and more! Here are some of the links that I’ve liked and shared this past week!

The image above is taken in Takotna, Alaska during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race on March 9, 2011. The green in the sky is the aurora borealis. More phenomenal photos from 2011 are in the Other section below.

10 New Years Resolutions For Small Businesses and Startups – http://bit.ly/t7wmEP

Small Businesses and Startups: Worst. Advice. Ever. – http://bit.ly/v6SwXL

Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews – http://t.co/qujdIQZk

Radio Still Good Advertising Option for Small Business – http://t.co/oVRqihB3

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: CorpsAfrica – http://bit.ly/x2iA7L

The ideal product manager – http://perfor.ms/uK2qJu

Stop whining and start hiring remote workers – http://bit.ly/vviGal

Good suggestions on handling customer service questions and issues – http://sto.ly/whZCLX

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: Flightwise/ MyRadar Mobile Apps – http://t.co/5TTMqMLJ

crowdSPRING’s Small Business Spotlight of the Week: NinjaDog Concepts – http://t.co/JVMH0TfV

Small Businesses and Startups: Worst. Advice. Ever. – http://bit.ly/v6SwXL

Should Startups Focus on Profitability or Not? – http://t.co/83e0h2kS

Mark Cuban on Why You Should Never Listen to Your Customers – http://t.co/b5DHvVmz

The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives – http://onforb.es/zZqYcZ

My advice to startups pitching the media – http://perfor.ms/vbXP8P

Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews – http://t.co/qujdIQZk

Some Thoughts On The IPO Market For Web Companies (by @fredwilson) – http://t.co/WzfBvutC

Marc Andreessen: Predictions for 2012 (and beyond) – http://t.co/2Y3XJq2G

The ideal product manager – http://perfor.ms/uK2qJu

There’s Only One Thing In Life You Can Control: Your Own Effort – http://read.bi/u32aYq

CEC’s Startup Forecast – “Never been a better time to start a company in Chicago” – http://t.co/8FckJve9

Mocked And Misunderstood – http://t.co/ubJCMtdq

Experienced entrepreneurs preserve equity – http://perfor.ms/uquQlD

What It’s Like To Be An Entrepreneur – Eboo Patel – http://bit.ly/ynsVZA

Good suggestions on handling customer service questions and issues – http://sto.ly/whZCLX

Stop whining and start hiring remote workers – http://bit.ly/vviGal

10 New Years Resolutions For Small Businesses and Startups – http://bit.ly/t7wmEP

The State of Social Marketing 2011 – 2012 – http://t.co/38z8IOAc

Has Twitter caused journalism to turn narcissistic? – http://bit.ly/vod6qk

Advertising Isn’t Dead – The Creative Process Is – http://bit.ly/u34ztJ

Advertising Firms Need To Be Downsized Before They Become Too Dumb For Their Own Good – http://t.co/niRIhwhx

End of an Era: The Golden Age of Tech Blogging is Over – http://t.co/CvUPSIRf

SEO Pricing: 600+ Agencies Share Costs of Services & Pricing Models – http://mz.cm/yeySyi

How Google+ Is Changing the Web, Even Though No One Wants It To – http://bit.ly/zeoG6J

Mobile Users Split on Check-In Services – http://t.co/deg6RQp4

Social network addiction around the world (Israelis are the most addicted) – http://t.co/RAXUY6kd

So great to see such strong support for interesting KickStarter projects (espresso machine) – http://t.co/tx9eiUln

Strong and prompt response from FedEx – good to see – to the monitor throwing video – http://t.co/1xMPCASl

Good to see Yelp/BWM integration – but are we heading to app overload in cars? - http://t.co/Idyq5U4L

The media’s fixation on size (Google+ vs. Facebook) is misguided. Why do we continue to obsess about size? – http://bit.ly/tSXmCi

Last Collection Of Creative Ads For 2011 – http://t.co/nA8Drm2Y

45 Creative Alcohol Advertisements – http://t.co/aafNlnRe

65 Free Fonts for Graphic Designers – http://bit.ly/vUwZRj

Best Of 2011: 40 Detailed Photoshop Icon Design Tutorials – http://t.co/zhcReo9P

Top 50 Photoshop Tutorials of 2011 – http://t.co/54BJzrkP

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Five Tips To Improve Employee Performance Reviews

Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

Dilbert.com

Last week, Mike wrote about Small Business and Startups: End-of-Year Mishegoss, 2011 Version. In that post, he briefly mentioned that the end of the calendar year is a good time to conduct employee reviews.

I’m not a fan of end-of-year employee reviews. If you waited until the end of the year to give feedback to your employees, you failed. But, when done properly, year-end employee reviews can serve an important purpose.

Here are five tips to help you improve your employee performance reviews.

1. Never wait until the end of the year – provide constructive feedback regularly. You should be providing regular constructive feedback to your team – and each employee you supervise throughout the year – on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. I am not suggesting you set up regular meetings for such reviews. Make your reviews and constructive feedback informal, low key, and regular. The measure I use for myself: does each person on my team know how I feel about their work during the prior week? If I can’t answer that question, I failed.

If an employee isn’t contributing, fire them after giving them an opportunity to improve. Don’t wait until the end-of-year reviews – you’ll only make yourself and your team miserable.

2. Take time to prepare for each review and require each employee to prepare. If you’re going to invest your own time and your employee’s time for an end-of-year review, make sure you both prepare. Take the time to identify three to four strengths and three to four areas for improvement. Make sure you’ve identified concrete examples for each so that you can go into more detail when appropriate.

Also make sure your employees know in advance that you’ll ask them to talk about strengths and areas for improvement. No employee is perfect. No person is perfect. We all can improve – and it’s your job to help your employees identify areas for improvement.

3. Be brutally honest. I’ve seen too many people afraid to speak their mind at review time. That’s not surprising – we’re typically not even honest with ourselves – how can we be honest with others. But when it comes to reviews, candor is critical – and should work both ways.

But be careful not to make the review only about mistakes. You want each employee to walk away more motivated and excited about their job – talking only about mistakes and problem areas will not accomplish that goal.

4. Stay human. Fight the temptation to spend the time reviewing graphs filled with data or reading from a form. Review time is a time to talk. If you want people on your team to feel like human beings, treat them as human beings.

5. Listen more than you talk. Far too many people think review time is a time to talk. It’s not. Review time is a time to listen. The conversation should always be two-way. Invite your employees to talk about their accomplishments and struggles. Invite them to talk about their work and personal goals for the coming year. Ask them if they’re happy with the work they’re doing and the people around them (you’d be surprised how many people are afraid to ask this question). Ask them how you can do better.

What other tips can you add that can help improve employee performance reviews?

10 New Years Resolutions For Small Businesses and Startups

Monday, December 19th, 2011

 The new year is fast upon us and it is time for that ritual known as resolution-time! I am not talking about a new resolve to eat lighter and get to the gym 4 days a week. I am talking about business resolutions – specific actions and efforts you should take over the course of the next few months to strengthen your business, improve your customer’s experience, and strengthen your team in the year ahead.

Some of these suggestions are specific things to do to help increase business activity, other undertakings are meant to help you learn more about the current state of your business. Not all of these are for every company, but I hope that you find a few on the list that make sense for you. Here then are 10 new-year-business-resolutions for 2012!

1. Review your strategic plan. It is a good idea to dust off your strategic plan at east once a year, and what better time then now? Business strategy needs to be ever changing and ever evolving if you hope to compete effectively, and an audit of your strategy is definitely in order. Schedule a brainstorming session, look hard at what your competition is doing, consider your marketing tactics and come away with a fresh approach to your business for the upcoming year.

2. Audit your social media strategyA SM assessment is an easy resolution to start the year, and Facebook is a natural starting point. Simple to use and critically important, FB is a key portal to your business, a point of entry for many of your potential customers. If you haven’t been attentive to this in 2011, start in 2012. Twitter is another channel that you should appraise and consider whether your efforts there are adequate or if they can stand improvement.

3. Attack your budgetWe do this at the end of each year, and it is critical that you look closely at your budget as soon as possible. Track last year’s expenses and compare actual expenditures with budgeted amounts. Do a reality check and see where there is fat to be cut or where you are underestimating the true costs. An focused look at your costs will help you to keep them under control in the new year.

4. Try some experimentation. Resolve in the new year to set specific goals for your business, define strategies to achieve those, and then develop a short list of experimental tactics to execute. Perhaps you haven’t tried email marketing, social media, public relations, special events, or other marketing  methods and some or all of these may prove effective if you try. Be sure that you are able to effectively measure the results of any new tactic you engage in and be ready to quickly kill those that are not working and increase your efforts with those that are.

5. Gather your data. The new year is the perfect time to reconsider the business data you gather and whether you are measuring what is truly important. Resolve to measure effectively, develop useful reporting, just be careful that you don’t waste your time or the team’s on measurements which will not move your company forward.

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