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SCORE blogger Rieva Lesonsky wrote this great post on the top 15 sites for women in business. We think these are great sources and tools you can use to grow.
- AllBusiness.com
– Center for Women’s Business Research
– Committee of 200
- ForbesWoman
- The Hot Mommas® Project Mission
- NAFE (The National Association for Female Executives)
- National Women’s Business Council
- NAWBO (The National Association of Women Business Owners)
- OWBO (The SBA’s Office of Women’s Business Ownership)
- SBA (The U.S. Small Business Administration)
- SBDCs (The Office of Small Business Development Centers)
- SmallBizDaily
- Small Biz Nation
- WBENC (The Women’s Business Enterprise National Council)
- WPO (The Women Presidents’ Organization)
Commenters also suggested these additional sites:
- Business.gov
- Women’s Leadership Exchange
– Women Impacting Public Policy
- Women Entrepreneur
Find the full post on the SCORE Women’s Success Blog
You can also check out our blogroll down on the right-hand side.
What sites do you find helpful? Let us know in a comment below.
Author: Biz Tips, Media, Resources, Women | 6 Comments »
(This post comes from WBC board member Tom Grifasi, of Enterprise Holdings System Corporation, as a follow-up to this introductory post about the business application of social media.)
The major social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn) have become household names and major marketing tools for business. However, two factors are often overlooked when a business decides to jump into the social media marketing:
First, there are dozens of social media sites (loosely defined) which can push your marketing message. Once you determine which sites seem to be popular with your target market, you can begin to focus your efforts and even create orchestrated campaigns to “cross market” your messages (aka “advertise your advertising”). Here’s a short list to get you started:
http://www.squidoo.com
http://www.tagfoot.com
http://www.ezinearticles.com (also, http://www.articlemarketer.com)
http://www.digg.com
http://www.stumbleupon.com
http://www.zimbio.com
http://www.mixx.com
http://www.friendfeed.com
http://www.big-boards.com
http://www.craigslist.com
Second, after Google acquired YouTube, their search algorithms changed and now give YouTube postings an advantage in Google search results. Therefore, video clips on YouTube will generate a better click-through rate to your website and your message than most other efforts at SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
And finally, what most marketers miss—even those who successfully use online marketing such as Social Media sites—is the Conversion Rate. That’s the ability to capture visitors to your site, turning click through visitors into bona fide leads, newsletter subscribers, etc.
Author: Biz Tips, Guest Blogger, Marketing, Media | 4 Comments »
In this day of constantly-refreshed status updates, tweets, texts, and feeds, we’d like to know:
How connected is your business?
We’ve recently joined Twitter and YouTube and have been maintaining a Facebook page for a while now, even syncing our feeds with a new platform, TweetDeck. This is all in an effort to make ourselves more available to you.
But we’re interested to see how many of you are tapping into social media. If you are connected in this multitude of ways, what benefits are you seeing from it?
A recent survey of our clients cited that the biggest concern in 2010 was marketing their business. And we are a firm believer in this kind of media’s marketing potential. We’d like to investigate this further, so stayed tuned for more content about how you can use social media and information sharing to your advantage.
Tell us what you think… Leave a comment!
Author: Biz Tips, Marketing, Media | 4 Comments »
Hi! Happy February!
I just wanted to stop in and share with a piece of relevant advice we came across. It comes form Janet W. Christy, author of Capitalizing on Being Woman Owned: Expert Advice for Women Who Have or Are Starting Their Own Business.
In light of the status of the economy and small business in 2010, she advises:
“Watch government announcements closely. In 2009, two characteristics of the stimulus package (officially the American Recovery and Reinvestment ACT) became apparent. First, the money was going to come through the same channels it has always come – for example: road and bridge money would go to Departments of Transportation or cities or counties to award contracts. Second, most of the money was going to come very slowly. It is important to pledge to watch the government announcements about stimulus packages, incentives and other money related actions because those announcements will provide information about who will receive the money, how it can be used and may include clues about if and how Woman Owned Business can be involved.”
I’m sure many of you, like me, watched the State of the Union address last week. The focus, as predicted, was on the status of small business and jobs in our struggling economy.
President Obama offered these incentives:
“I’m proposing that we take $30-billion of the money Wall Street banks have repaid and use it to help community banks give small businesses the credit they need to stay afloat. I am also proposing a new small business tax credit – one that will go to over one million small businesses who hire new workers or raise wages. While we’re at it, let’s also eliminate all capital gains taxes on small business investment; and provide a tax incentive for all businesses, large and small, to invest in new plants and equipment.”
At this time, these are just executive proposals, so we remind you to watch the legislative process, see what is passed, and how it can ultimately benefit you.
What do you think about these proposals?
Leave a comment!
Author: Biz Tips, In the News, Policy | 2 Comments »
Hi there, Gabby here!
I’ve just returned from my holiday vacation on the West Coast and I’m excited to be back in the office and on the blog. I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break and is ready as we are at the WBC to tackle 2010.
Some exciting things are happening at the Women’s Business Center right now:
First of all, if you’ve been to our homepage recently, you might have noticed that we are now on Facebook and LinkedIn!
Since we are a partner organization to a college, we thought it was only appropriate for us to start a Facebook group. And if you’re not on Facebook (or you just can’t get enough of us on the web), we would be happy to be a part of your professional network on LinkedIn!
Also, we are happy to announce that we will be holding our second-ever Sister Mixer this February at the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens Society! Some of you may have attended the first Sister Mixer this summer at Dug’s Dive on the waterfront. We invite you to come again for some fun, informal networking with other guests and clients of all WBC programs. For more information, click here. We hope you can attend!
I also wanted to share with you, in light of the new year, some advice for small business owners in 2010. This article, published over on WebCPA, highlights the top ten tips shared by 750 real small business owners, based on past year’s experience.
They advise:
1. Start Preparing Your Taxes Now
2. Cut Personal Expenses
3. Think Green
4. Have a Long-Term Plan
5. Don’t Focus on the Money
6. Use the Web (one thing we really emphasize at the WBC)
7) Rely on Yourself
8. Focus on Sales
9. Stay in Touch with Family
10. Stay Healthy
You can read the full text of the article here.
To leave a comment, click here.
Author: Biz Tips, Events | No Comments »
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