With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, retailers are reaping the benefits of yet another holiday that spurs increased spending.  “According to a National Retail Federation survey of nearly 9,000 consumers, shoppers will spend an average of $116.21 on traditional Valentine’s Day merchandise, such as greeting cards, flowers and candy, this year, up 11% from $103.00 in 2010”.  What I found interesting was that “32% of consumers plan to do their Valentine’s Day shopping online.”  So while an increase in spending bodes well for small business, such a large number of purchasers shopping online does not... 

On the fourth day of business, it’s time to ask if your job candidate has been naughty or nice this year.   Yes, it’s social media time. 

I recently read an article that I found, well, extremely surprising. Astounding, even. As part of its second annual Connected World Technology Report, Cisco surveyed 1,400 students and 1,4000 young professionals aged 21-29 in 14 countries, inquiring about their technology behaviors and viewpoints. The results of the survey were released in mid November and show startling results. One in three colleges considers the Internet to be as important as fundamental human resources like air, water, food and shelter.

The survey took things a step further and found that one in three college students and young employees under the age of 30 would priorities social media freedom and device flexibility over salary in accepting a job offer. Even more unbelievably, over half of college students globally would turn down a job with a company that banned staff access to social media, or would find a way around the policy...

I recently read an article on SmallBizTrends.com, 8 Steps to Take Your Brick and Mortar Business Online written by Tyler Garns, Director of Marketing for Infusionsoft.  I decided to rate one of my companies, Advantage Payroll Services, against the 8 steps they suggest to follow to ensure your company has a significant presence online. 

Here’s how Advantage stacks up:

1. Get Found- Check!   Tyler suggests list your business listed in Google places, industry directories, local directories and more.    If you Google Advantage Payroll Services Long Island, you’ll see us clearly listed on the map.  If you click the map, you’ll see our logo comes up in the information box.  We’re also listed on multiple local websites and we have a profile for our branch on LinkedIn...

When Facebook was introduced in 2004 it was available only to college students and shared only basic information.  Then the “Wall” was added to open communication between Facebook users.  In 2005, the “Photos” application was added.  Finally in 2006, Facebook was opened to the general public and the social media craze took off...

by Joi Brooks
in Social Media Marketing

Social email combines social media with email data to increase email relevance, improve targeting effectiveness, enhance overall engagement and drive online sales. If managed properly, social email exchanges information between your email marketing database and social media sites to help serve your subscribers just their cup of tea.

Don’t confuse your social media pages with your subscribers’ social media playground. The two concepts are subtly different.Social sharing links (links that represent your subscribers’ social circle: send to a friend, share this, and like) invite email subscribers to share their inbox content with their friends and colleagues. Header and footer sections of your emails should weave share links into regularly featured content, limited time discount offers, sneak peeks at anticipated new products, and exclusive gifts for the sharer to engage interest and clicks...

I stumbled upon a great article on msnbc.com the other day that talked about the steps to take after you lose your job. After the dust settles, there is a lot to be accomplished and this article laid it out in order. I may not agree with everything listed, but they certainly put everyone on the path of forward movement.

Step 1 according to the article was contacting a career coach. Yes, it’s true that most don’t charge for the initial meeting, but depending on your career or your coach, these costs can quickly mount. I suggest checking out your local SBA office or Department of Labor office to see if they have a career coach or career counselor on staff who can help you formulate a plan for your job hunt...

By: Daniel Mazzei & Justin Friedberg

Why is it so difficult for young professionals to break into their industry? Could it be because of the “generation gap” between them and the already seasoned business professional? Perhaps it is because of the difference in modern business perspectives?

As a young professional who is a product of the digital generation, I have come to notice that seasoned business professionals tend to look down on the newly graduated as inexperienced with a sense of entitlement. However, while I am inexperienced in traditional ways of business, my open minded use of my education allows me to view the marketing world differently than the generation that came before. For instance, was Facebook not conceived by a few college kids in a dorm room?...

It’s difficult to find a good employee – someone who will arrive on time, who will be dedicated to the task on hand, who won’t be a negative presence in the office. I wrote on the American Express Open Forum recently about an experience I had with an employee who was difficult, disrespectful and a negative influence on other, more dedicated staff members. In that blog, I highlighted the importance of an interview process that ensures that those types of individuals do not get hired...

Did you know that your Social Network has a direct effect on your health? This use to be called “Peer pressure”… A kid in caught high school did something stupid; the blame was always chalked up to Peer Pressure. As adults we hope we have outgrown Peer Pressure but we are constantly reminded every day that we can fall victims to outside influence...

Everyone knows that this popular social media site is great for connecting with friends, family and attracting people to your business brand.  I thought I had heard of every use of Facebook until I had a conversation with Basso On Business client Brian Fagan.  Brian has been struggling with keeping himself on task and remaining motivated to accomplish the important things he needs to do each day to reach his goals.  He recently started mapping out his schedule to stay focused in order to assure his goals are met, but it was not enough to hold him accountable...

At Basso On Business we want to expand our reach to give back and help each and every part of the business world, including the online sector.

We launched a real world forum with Working Lunch where business professionals can come together and share insights to challenges and problems they’re looking to overcome while garnering advice and feedback.  As of today, we’ve launched our new LinkedIn group and have taken that same entrepreneurial mindset in bringing business owners and professionals together to help each other overcome challenges and problems and transcended our thinking into the social media realm...

As social media still continues to grow and play a major role in business each and every day  you have to ask yourself the question, “Am I using my social media tools in the most effective and efficient way?”

I know that lots of you think social media can take away from your usual business day and it’s definitely something you don’t want to get completely wrapped up in, but managing your social media and keeping it up to date is a necessity for better business. There are a number of different social media management platforms and I recently came across a great one. It’s called Hootsuite and it comes to us by way of our friends in Canada up north. Hootsuite is a website and online brand management service, which publishes to websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and WordPress...

UBE is now working with a new client (TheCampusSocialite.com) helping them optimize their blogging website.  The site is fully functional and recently went through a major redesign.  Unfortunately, the blog writters did not work on optimizing their articles from the get go and they now find themselves with several thousand articles that need to be optimized for search engines.  Additionally, they are continuing to write articles and need to know proper strategy for those.

While this is a huge project, we are currently working on smaller parts of it.  Firstly, we are working on new articles that are optimized for specific topics that we hope will garner Search Engine traffic for the website.  The site already gets plenty of traffic through social media sources such as Facebook, Twitter, Digg, etc but lacks in the organic traffic.   A good example to show how we are working to expand the site’s SEO is our work today....

I was speaking at a Chamber of Commerce recently, and asked the business owners in attendance to raise their hands if they utilized social media at their organization. About half the hands in the room went up. When I asked who actively used both Facebook and Twitter, only a smattering of hands went up. I found it surprising that while half the business owners in attendance used social media to a certain extent, only one profile was actively maintained and updated.

I started to think about why this could be the case and thought about how our usage of social media evolved. At my organization, we find both tools very important in getting out our message. We have thousands of followers on Twitter who may not follow us on Facebook, or vice versa, and it’s important our message is heard by everyone...

Exactly 234 years ago, a group of brave, brilliant and industrious individuals met in a steamy Philadelphia room and agreed to do something that had never been done before—start a revolution.  The risks were great; the price that was paid was high in terms of lives lost, lives destroyed and money, but in the end the reward was unmatched in human history.  The American Revolution gave us a country where freedom is sacred.

Today despite a challenging economy we have the freedom to express ourselves and pursue our business as well as our personal dreams.  For many the dream is being an entrepreneur or a small business owner or simply pursuing a career in a chosen profession or industry.  Having this choice is an integral part of our national character and a driver of the entrepreneurial spirit.  While entrepreneurs and small businesses are under attack from many directions, the American entrepreneurial spirit lives on...

Acquiring the skills to not only grab someone’s attention, but develop a relationship with that person is the key to successful marketing. Integrating social media opportunities into your current marketing plan can present itself as a challenge to many, but with the rise of technology, it is almost a requirement to know how to market your company using new media. Just be sure to remember those core “time-tested” techniques you learned before the days of social media. Applying old fashioned techniques to modern day social media, will give you an advantage in exactly how to dominate the world of marketing yourself and your business...