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Effective Marketing Vital to Small Business Success

Loss of jobs through closures and the contraction of large businesses, has forced a shift in economic development policies for towns and cities nationwide. Many communities are recognizing the fruitfulness of encouraging small business start-ups and expansions. Small businesses play a vital role in contributing to a state’s economy and remain a significant source of creating new jobs.  By adopting economic development strategies that promote entrepreneurship, communities are fostering a healthy business climate that allows free enterprise to thrive.

The U.S. Small Business Administration posted the following statistics about the importance of small businesses to the U.S. economy:

Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.

Employ about half of all private sector employees.

Pay nearly 45 percent of total U.S. private payroll.

Have generated 60 to 80 percent of net new jobs annually over the last decade.

Create more than half of non-farm private gross domestic product (GDP).

Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers & computer workers).

Are 52 percent home-based and 2 percent franchises.

In 2007, there were an estimated 27.2 million businesses* in the United States. Census data shows that there were 6.0 million firms with employees and 20.4 million without employees in 2005. Of the 6.0 million firms with employees, it is estimated that 90% of these employ 20 people or less. The resounding number without employees represents the ever growing demographic of the sole proprietor.

There are many things to consider when wanting to start your own business, such as financing, a focused business plan, and developing a customer base. There are many talented individuals who focus solely on offering the best product or service and ignore one very crucial component – developing and following an effective marketing strategy.

The emergence of Web 2.0 – business blogs, search engine optimization, social media sites, social bookmarking and microblogging – has created a powerful, cost-effective way for entrepreneurs to reach a vast audience. If you are unsure how to properly utilize these tools, we would love to work with you to create a customized social media campaign that advances your brand and meets your objectives.

*Source: Office of Advocacy estimates based on data from the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, and U.S. Dept. of Labor, Employment and Training Administration.…

Grim Reaper – It’s Not Easy Being Me

Let’s make sure of one thing before you read on, I don’t need or want your sympathy because I have your soul coming to me eventually! But it really is not easy being me, the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper is the most hated person in the Universe. Yes it is true, humans as well as the other life forms in the universe hate me and are deathly afraid of me (a little grim humor there). But why? Why do I get the bad rap? Why am I the most feared angel? This whole Angel of Death thing has gotten way out of control. But don’t cry for me Argentina, Brazil you can cry for me but not Argentina.

Alright, let me give you some reasons why it is hard to be me. First I have no night life. I am so busy 24 hours a day I don’t have the time to party. I have to work unlike most of you. If you people quit killing each other I might have some time for me and the family. But NO, let’s have a war, let’s piss some religious freak off, let’s make fun of the gay guy, let’s kill someone because he is not like me! My god people (sorry God) let’s cut the crap and enjoy your life because you ain’t going to live forever! Second, I can’t go anywhere without being recognized. Just once, would it be too difficult for any of you to come up to me to say “hi”, “what’s up”, how ya doing”, give me a smile or even ask for my autograph? Huh, would it? All I get from you people is this look of fear, screaming and kicking, trying to run away from me like I have some sort of plague or something. Hey, I work on my looks, the wife likes them. So why can’t you make me feel a little more welcome when you see me? Third, you humans refer to me as the Angel of Death, like I have the right to take your soul. Get real humans! Let me explain something. The Angel of Death administers the particular punishment that “God” (yea God, not me) has ordained for your sins. The Angel of Death receives his order from “God”. As soon as I have received permission to destroy, I make no distinction between good and bad, I just do my job. Pure and simple, I do my job. So stop looking at me as the Angel of Death, start trying to look at me like God’s FedEx Pick-up Angel or God’s Lackey Angel or God’s Minion but not the Angel of Death. To make my case more concrete, Moses did not die through the Angel of Death, but through God’s kiss. It’s in the Hebrew bible so quit blaming Moses death on me, please.

I made my case. I am not the bad guy here. I am a hard working …

How Even Small Businesses Benefit From Social Media Optimization

According to recent surveys, nearly eight in ten small businesses have problems executing their marketing strategies. Simply having a strategy in place is not enough- for it to be effective, it must be implemented properly. More small businesses are coming to view the Internet as a suitable marketing medium. In particular, social media offers businesses huge marketing opportunities. Many companies have found social media optimization, or SMO, quite effective.

SMO makes use of social networking Web sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Digg to drive traffic to a business Web site. There are many benefits to doing this and improving Web site traffic, increasing brand visibility, making the business more accessible, and achieving higher page ranks are the main ones. The best part is that all of this comes at a cost much less than traditional marketing techniques.

Cost alone should not be the reason a business uses SMO. One of the most visible investments is the return on this cost, also referred to as return on investment (ROI). There is no reason to spend a penny on a method that does not generate a decent return. Small businesses have small budgets, making ROI even more important. A properly planned and well-executed SMO plan provides better conversion rates than many other Web techniques, due to its targeted approach.

The word “social” in social media is there for a reason- this platform is about people. The Internet should not be viewed as a large pool of people, but as a continuous stream of visitors to the business Web site. With social media, businesses channel the stream and convert the visitors into customers. By interacting with an increasing number of people on a daily basis, the business has a greater chance of getting new customers.

New customers are great, but what about the existing ones? SMO has been shown to be the best way for most companies to stay in touch with current customers. A customer means everything to a business and retaining an existing one by building loyalty through special deals and offers is important. Businesses can use SMO to interact with existing customers and keep them engaged. Not only should these techniques help retain those customers, they can lead to new referrals from these individuals.

With social networks, businesses can receive direct feedback from their target audience. Too often, businesses only hear from disgruntled customers. Though this can help owners learn from mistakes and prevent the problem from occurring again, it can also be very disheartening. Receiving some kudos from members of social media networks is a nice alternative. If the customer agrees, a compliment may be converted to a testimonial.

The basic features of social networks do not cost anything, making social media optimization a feasible way for the smallest business to increase its presence. If the company designates an individual to manage the relevant networks, the endeavor should begin paying off quickly. Any small business mulling over social …

Gaming Laptops Goes Mini-Me (Dell Intros Alienware M11x – The World’s First Gaming Netbook)

While Dell’s introduction of the first gaming netbook at the recent CES or Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas wasn’t necessarily the ultimate show stopper, the Alienware M11x did turn a lot of heads, especially among the gaming crowd. Having a small compact four pound gaming netbook with an 11 inch display goes against everything associated with gaming laptops, since most gaming notebooks are heavy, large and try to pack everything under the hood that a decent Gaming Desktop PC would possess. Big emphasis on try.

But a gaming netbook goes completely in the other direction, what’s up with that?

Well, actually there’s a lot to notice about this sleek powerful little device mainly because it comes from Alienware, the premier maker of gaming machines on the planet. While many serious gamers swear anything but a PC for gaming is a foolish idea; most would agree if you have to lower yourself to using a gaming laptop – it might as well be one made by Alienware. In other words, Alienware and computer gaming have become synonymous in the hearts and minds of most gamers.

In our ever increasing demand for everything mobile, perhaps a gaming netbook is only the next illogical step! Make it small, make it powerful and they will come. Right?

Not so fast.

The jury is still out on this gaming netbook which will hit the marketplace in February and sell for under $1000. Which is still expensive, considering many quality netbooks are in the $200 to $400 range. Will gamers snap up this portable gamer in order to have their games with them, no matter where they go? Judging by the popularity of such devices as the Nintendo DS, the answer could be a solid yes.

Improving those odds are the rather impressive specs featured on the Alienware M11x which sports a High Definition 11 inch display and a GT335M GPU from NVIDIA. It is capable of playing such popular games as Call of Duty (Modern Warfare 2) at 30 frames-per-second with a 1336 x 768 max resolution. Alienware is claiming even higher frames rates with benchmarks of well over 60 fps, even capable of reaching 90 fps. Battery life (as claimed by Alienware) stands at 3 or 4 hours for gaming, and up to 6 or 7 hours for general use.

The M11x also sports some other impressive specs for such a small machine: built-in Wi-Fi and webcam, multiple USB ports, HDMI-output, SD card reader and a built-in SIM card reader which will allow users to utilize their cellphone SIM card and have access to Internet services. Also, the M11x has both the NVIDIA GPU and an integrated chipset – you can switch to the less demanding graphics when not gaming to save battery life.

Of course, the M11x has all the styling and features you would expect from an Alienware gaming laptop, like those seen on the powerful M17x …

Online Marketing Campaign – Plan of Action for Your First Three Months

Creating an online marketing campaign is easy. The hard part is having faith in it. It will take a lot of your time and some of it will be boring. But if you stick with what you do, 6 months down the line you could be laughing all the way to the bank.

Before I go into any internet marketing detail I want to make it clear that the first 3 months is all about taking massive action. It will take time but everything I talk about can be done by anyone, regardless of their web business background.

1) Set up your social sites – Social media marketing has boomed in the last 5 years. Because of sites like Facebook and Twitter you can now connect with thousands of people at the click of a button. You will want to have profiles on all the major social media sites. Once you’ve done this you want to start adding friends. I mean thousands of friends, a minimum of 5,000 for each profile. Remember, to put pictures up and link to your blog (see below).

2) Set up your blog – Creating a blog using a site like WordPress or blogger is easy. Online marketing blogs are very powerful, and are also very good at branding you. Add regular content in the form of videos and articles (see below).

3) Article marketing and video marketing – Find keyword phrases in your niche with low competition and start creating articles and videos on them. Include the keyword phrase in the title and a few times in the body content (you obviously can’t do that in the video). You want to create a minimum of 80 articles 80 videos. Finding content is not hard, just do some research online and take some notes, then regurgitate.

The above is a very basic outline of my online marketing campaign for my first 3 months. There are more aspects to it than just the above. But once you get into it these will come to you.

Don’t give up if you think nothing’s happening. It will come eventually.…

Points To Consider Before Buying A Gaming Computer

A gaming PC is a computer that can run games at the best settings. There are numerous models of gaming laptops and desktop computers available in the market that provide an excellent gaming experience to the user. There is a wide range of gaming PCs available in the market and this makes it somewhat difficult to choose the one which can provide impressive performance.

To select the best device that suits your budget and requirements, you need to do a little bit of research. The prerequisites for these devices are a webcam, microphone, multi-card reader, USB ports, and a good pair of speakers. You need to look for some other important points also before buying a gaming laptop or computer which are:

Processor

This is the backbone of these devices and the basic and standard demand for gaming laptops are the Dual-core processors with a minimum of 2GHz processing speed.

Screen Size and Display

A bigger and brighter screen or monitor provides more enjoyable gaming experience. There are many screen sizes available and such as 15, 17, 18 and even 20+ inch display monitors. Larger screens make everything look better but if you are buying a laptop, you should also consider the portability factor.

Video Card or GPU

The video card or GPU is a necessary component to render the fantastic gaming environment for you to explore. It provides the muscle for the dynamic lighting, landscapes, explosions and action sequences making modern gaming real fun. Now a days, 512MB, 1GB and even 2GB video card are used in these computers but if you want to opt for cheap laptops or desktops with an optimum performance, a GPU with 896 MB of video RAM should be sufficient to provide the desired performance.

RAM

Today computers with higher quantities of system RAM are available. RAM or Random access memory is a small chip inside the system that stores data in a digital format. Today, one can find a system with system RAM as high as 24 GB but your new gaming PC doesn’t need the full 24 GB of system RAM. In fact, this only offers a very slight improvement in the performance, but the cost accompanied by the same does not make it worthwhile. You can easily opt for systems with 4 GB of RAM which are much lower in cost and still provide superb gaming experience.

Hard Drive

Storage is another very important point to look for in a gaming PC. Just ensure that you have a big hard drive to back up all your data and media files.

There are dozens of options available, and some of them can cost you a fortune. But this does not mean that you have to spend a huge amount on your new device. Cheap laptops and gaming computers can be bought from various electronic stores, games stores, and the Internet. There are many online shopping portals also where one can compare the latest deals …

How to Fix the Playstation 3 Yellow Light – Fix My PS3 Yellow Light of Death

Got the PlayStation 3 yellow light? Looking for a way on how to fix your light of death problem? There are 2 ways to get this problem fixed. You either send your console over to Sony, or you will start a fix by yourself with the exclusive step by step techniques from a PS3 repair guide. But first, some tips!

1) Restart your PlayStation 3.

2) Check for loose cables.

3) Unplug all cables and plug them back in. (Not the power cord)

4) Take out the hard-drive, and put it back in. Repeat this step 3-4 times.

Didn’t the tips that I gave you fix the PlayStation 3 yellow light? Too bad… Well, keep your head up! You’ve got 2 ways to get it fixed now. Let me explain some more about it.

Fix My PlayStation 3 Yellow Light By Sending It Over To Sony?

This option sounds so…great… Right? Well, it’s definitely not. Want to know why? This is because of 2 reasons. The waiting times, and the price you’ll have to pay.

You see, when you are actually doing this, you’ll have to pay Sony $150 for the repairs. But, to cheer you up… This is only needed if your warranty has been expired. Also, the waiting times are really, really long.. You’ll have to wait at least 2 weeks, and this could go up to 1 month quite easily.

Fix My PlayStation 3 Yellow Light By Myself With A PS3 Repair Guide?

This is the best option that you’ve got if you want to fix the Yellow light of death on your PlayStation 3. This is because it’s cheap and fast.

When you do this it’s highly recommended to use a PS3 repair guide. This is because it will give you step by step instructions so it will be easier to fix your PlayStation 3 yellow light problem.…

Top Ten Tips For Building Your Own Computer

Planning your system: If you already have a keyboard, mouse and monitor or LCD and you want to build you own new PC, First you have to decided, for what purpose you want to build you PC, like gaming, documentation, graphics designing, or any other use. First decided your budget and purpose. Now I have assuming that we want to build gaming pc. You need Mother board, Processor, RAM, Chassis Power Supply, HDD (Hard Disk Drive), Optical Drive and Graphics Card. We will discussed these topics separately.

Processor: Choose between Intel & AMD. In Asia Intel is most popular, because its support Asian climate, if you build PC for gaming of 2009 and 2010 games, you need at least core i3 or core i5, core i5 750 is best processor, core i5 750 has 8mb cashe and 1333 Mhz bus speed. If you have less budget use Core i3-540 Processor

you can also upgrade your PC to Intel Core i7 Processors.

Motherboard (MB): There are two well known brands in motherboard these are ASUS and Intel, Intel is more reliable than ASUS, but performance wise ASUS is more better than Intel, try to chose ATX form factor motherboard, also check comparability of board, if you want to use SLI than chose dual PCIe slot board. I recommend Intel H55HC and ASUS P7H55D-M PRO, it is good board and on very economical price. Both board are support up to Intel Core i7 Processors.

Memory (RAM): Try to chose dual channel memory, Corsair XMS3 is best memory to faster your PC, if you have less budget use normal value RAM. If you use ASUS you can over clock your memory..

Case & Power Supply: Antec and Cooler Master are good brand is chassis, I recommend you Elite CM370 is best economical casing, you can also use CM690 is best choice. For PSU calculate your all peripherals power consumption than chose power supply. In my thinking 420W supply is best for above configuration. If you have good budget use branded supply like Cooler Master, Antec and Corsair.

Optical Drive: Don’t think cheaper than DVD burner, I recommend you Sony DVD burner

Hard Drive: Hard drive cache is most important than thinking for capacity, because your hard disk speed based on cache, I think today in minimum capacity required is 500GB, I love to Western Digital Caviar Black 1.0 TB, SATA II 3.5″ (WD1002FAEX)

Graphics Card: There is no limit to chose graphic card, but most important part of graphic card is Card have how many Bits and Direct X support, in my thinking minimum Bit for graphic card is 128, but more is better, try to chose new model and because some of new games are creating problem on old cards. Brand is also a important, try to chose XFX, EVGE and HIS, if you want to go with ATI, personally I am a fan of nVidia, 9800GT is Good card, 512MB, GDDR3, 256Bit, Clock …

Can the Playstation Vita Succeed Where the Nintendo 3DS Failed?

A few months ago Sony announced the coming of the successor to the PSP, dubbed the PlayStation Vita. Month’s earlier Nintendo released their latest handheld gaming machine, the 3DS. Since its launch the 3DS has had lackluster sales causing Nintendo to prematurely lower the price of the system. Many are quick to point out that the competition from the mobile phone game market has cannibalized 3DS sales. However, is this really the case? If it’s not, then why has the 3DS struggled so much and what can the PlayStation Vita do to avoid the same problems.

The one thing that affects a system launch more than anything is the stable of games released with it. At its launch, Nintendo seemingly had several high profile 3rd party games launching with the system (Madden, Super Street Fighter, Sims) to name a few. However, most of these games were half baked launch titles. Most of these received poor reviews and weren’t compelling. Interest waned quickly.

From a technology standpoint the 3DS is innovative. It is the first handheld gaming device to convincingly use 3D, for the most part. Although the 3D effect is impressive, the narrow view field makes the system tedious and sometimes difficult to use. Also, early warnings from Nintendo regarding extended use of the 3D effect didn’t help.

So what can the PS Vita do to avoid these problems? The most important thing Sony can do is to have an impressive lineup for the PlayStation Vita. So far several successful PS3 franchises have already announced PlayStation Vita versions: Uncharted, Call of Duty, Silent Hill, Resistance, Mortal Kombat and many more. However, Sony needs to stress quality over quantity with these initial launch titles. Compelling games will attract more gamers and drive more sales for the PlayStation Vita.

On paper, the PlayStation Vita is a technological monster. It has nearly as much power as the PS3 and is a fraction of the size. It has a lot of nice features such as a front touch screen and a back touch pad as well a three-axis gyroscope and a three-axis accelerometer. All this high-tech stuff means nothing unless developers use these features in unique and creative ways. Sony needs to cultivate the creativity of their first party developers and push them to use the technology in ways we haven’t seen before. Much like the Nintendo Wii did when it originally launched, the PS Vita needs to pull people in by showing them something they haven’t seen before. If Sony’s first party developers can show what the PlayStation Vita is capable of, then 3rd party developers will surely jump in and maybe Sony will have its first truly successful handheld gaming machine.…

The Social Media Revolution – How to Make it Work For You

After trading since 2001, I now get 98% of business via word-of-mouth. Although I provide traditional marketing services to my clients, I do very little of it for myself. I don’t even do as much face-to-face networking as I used to. These days, I win business through online marketing. It’s free! But it does take time, and you can’t do it all at once.

Here is my recommended order of events:

1. Have a website that offers added value, because most people use the Internet to search for ‘how to’ information (mine has pages of free resources and fun stuff)

2. Send a regular newsletter that offers added value (mine includes hints, tips and wordy humour)

3. Start a blog that offers added value (mine is about what business owners can learn from UK advertising)

4. Upload articles that offer added value e.g. on sites such as EzineArticles

5. Share your expertise on networking sites e.g. Groups and Answers on LinkedIn

6. Include links to your added value content in your Facebook status and/or Twitter updates (mixed in with social and fun content to add personality)

Have you noticed a theme? Like face-to-face networking, online marketing is about adding value, showing personality and sharing expertise. That’s what wins clients these days. OK, so that’s anecdotal. If you want some statistics about the impact of social media, watch this YouTube video.

And it’s not just small businesses that use social media to promote themselves. Big brands such as Skittles know the value of bottom-up content instead of top-down selling. Their home page now comprises a series of links to external websites where their customers discuss their product. ‘Chatter’ goes to Twitter. ‘Friends’ goes to Facebook. ‘Media’ goes to YouTube and Flickr. If this marketing strategy is good enough for a major confectioner, it’s sweet enough for the rest of us!…