Small Business

23 Aug

Posted at 14:22h in Small Business, Social Media by
In my last post, we looked at some of the different ways of defining original content that you may not have considered when writing your blogs. I introduced the idea of using Copyscape to ensure that there is no duplication within your posts, and this week we’ll look exactly at how you can use that tool to your advantage. Copyscape is designed primarily to prevent plagiarism.  Often, websites use it to ensure that no one else has stolen their original content.  It is also a great tool to use as a writer. When I’ve discussed this with other writers in the past,  I’ve received looks like I’m crazy using Copyscape on my own writing – because it should be pretty clear to me whether or not I’ve plagiarized the content. That may be true, but as we covered last time, there are other definitions of ‘original content’ and if I want to ensure that I meet the criteria for one of those – ensuring there is  ZERO duplication within the content - Copyscape is the best option. Want to know more about using Copyscape to ensure your content is original ?

22 Aug

Posted at 07:28h in Management Mondays, Small Business by
A program on American Public Media’s Marketplace on Saturday morning caught my attention as APM’s Heidi Moore presented the pros and cons of using the GDP and consumerism as a means of measuring how “well” we’re doing. I’ve always thought it was a bit of a conundrum that as we try to reuse as much as we can (right now to the current obsession with vintage clothing) we’re still measuring ourselves on how much we’re consuming. It’s the same when I hear that unemployment is high, but the number of startups is rapidly increasing. Does anyone not see the correlations between these things? I can’t tell you how many of my friends have started their businesses while on unemployment. (Frankly I don’t see anything wrong with that and I’m happy to pay taxes to fund my friends’ and others’ dreams.) I don’t agree with a lot of what happens in the UK but I was intrigued by the new Gallup-Healthways Wellbeing Index. It’s an index of how well UK residents are doing in terms of their health and well-being. The reporter went on to talk about “why don’t we have one here” and so I looked it up. We’ve had a Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index in the US since 2008. (Shame on you, Heidi Moore that was super easy to find.) Basically, here’s what it does:

16 Aug

Posted at 14:52h in Small Business, Social Media by
Beth Hodgson writes so often for the Wax blog we often forget she works for other clients as well, with her problogging service Writesourcing. If you're looking for great, unique content for your blog or site, give Beth a shout on Twitter! We’ve discussed the issue of plagiarism before, on a couple of occasions. (See our post on 'Avoiding Online Plagiarism' last April) But really, the overall realm of original content is the gift that keeps on giving. A major topic of discussion around the Writesourcing water cooler (our virtual one, of course) is if there are other ways to define ‘original content’ that looks beyond the obvious theft, sourcing quoted material and the like. Well, fortunately, a client forced us to explore that further.

02 Aug

Posted at 10:02h in Small Business by
Like a lot of little girls, I was absolutely horse crazy starting at about the age of 6. I took horseback riding lessons, I loved burying my face in the nape of their neck and I even didn't mind mucking out the stalls.  My father was a doctor and so we had some means -  I begged him for a horse. He promised me when I turned 16, he would buy me a horse. That's the danger of a promise. People might remember that you made it.

18 Jul

Posted at 05:28h in Management Mondays, Small Business by
There are about as many interviewing techniques as there are people who conduct interviews. Everyone is different, so that provides opportunities for us to learn from one another. I hope to offer a few ideas of my own for your consideration. Some of these ideas might seem a bit odd. That’s okay, because it’s the odd stuff that gets us thinking, and if it works to our benefit, then it quickly becomes perfectly normal. So, let’s look at what some might consider odd interviewing techniques. As odd as they may seem, they can help us make a nice match between our enterprise and the candidates who make themselves available to fill positions we have to offer. Better yet, perhaps these techniques will help you find someone who can make their own position within your firm, even if you don’t have an opening. Does that seem odd? Yes? Okay, then let’s discuss that as our first of many interviewing techniques.

14 Jul

Posted at 11:02h in Integrated Marketing, SEO, Small Business, Social Media by
 Ayushman Jain is a 20-something IBM engineer and writer from Bangalore.  No idea why he agreed to write for the Wax blog but we appreciate his insider info on SEO and other propeller-head stuff So you've laid the foundations of a social business successfully by creating a neat, slick website? What next? You'll probably want to make sure your website looks like a  rush hour street in downtown Manhattan (read traffic). Most people know that search engine optimization (SEO) techniques help in achieving just that. But not many know that their techniques are quite dumb and actually pulling their website down on the rankings. Read on to find out just how you could be killing your website's chances of being a search engine's chum:

12 Jul

Posted at 06:24h in Small Business by
By Beth Graddon-Hodgson Although the Google Panda update has been responsible for the decline in ranking success for many sites – in some cases,  for justified reasons – it has helped reinforce a number of important concepts that apply to blogging. What Google has been so kind to reinforce is  a number of concepts that we’ve discussed before on this blog. But considering there’s now more demand to put the related strategies for use, it is worth revisiting. Whether you’re just starting a blog or already have one setup, there are some things you should implement now.  Panda reminds us of the power of these simple strategies:

11 Jul

Posted at 07:34h in Management Mondays, Small Business by
Occasionally I’ve gone outside the boundaries of this blog and talked about management, not just pr and marketing. Since those posts always seem to get a ton of attention, I’ve decided to take the liberty of tossing in a few more for a  “management monday” post here and there. After last week’s jobs report it may seen odd to start with interviewing tips. But despite the report, many of my small business clients ARE hiring again (and I think we’ll see that reflected in the numbers later this summer). So if you’re rusty on interviewing after a couple years of working just to keep the ship afloat, small business blogger Clair Schwan offers up some great advice! By Clair Schwan Let’s look at some useful tips on interviewing prospective employees. More specifically, let’s look at how to make the best use of your time before interviews even start. Interviewing potential employees is time-consuming, and picking good employees is essential, so we need to make effective use of our time to ensure best results from this important effort. If we screen our prospects, we’re likely to make better decisions in less time. And, the time we save can be invested in the finalists we choose to interview.

30 Jun

Posted at 11:21h in Public Relations, Sales, Small Business by
Whenever I meet with new clients they want to know how we're going to use PR to reach their clients. Imagine their expression when I tell them we're not going to message your clients. I tell these shocked folk in most cases, public relations does not translate to direct sales.  If they want to sell directly to their clients, go buy ads. If they haven't kicked me out at this point, a client will usually ask (in a sarcastic tone that increases in direct proportion  to the size of his or her company/wallet) "So why should we pay you all this money?" First of all let's deal with the fact that most of us only see the really big public relations bonanzas. For someone who hasn't worked with PR a lot, or who has had a bad experience with PR, that's your point of familiarity. The first thing that needs to happen is that expectations need to be reset. Sure, there is the occasional huge hit that turns a lesser-known product into an overnight seller. Oprah's book club was a great example. But those are very few and far between. If you get them, and then the more important caveat if they work, you win the public relations lottery. We always try but it very rarely happens. So what's the answer to my clients' question?