What do you care about most as a marketer? Driving traffic to your site AND creating either great leads or sales, depending on the type of business. And knowing where these people came from and what they are interested in. Then, wouldn’t you love to target offers, content and communications based on who they are?

Well, that capability is now being provided by Hubspot. The company had its Inbound Marketing conference this week, which drew over 2,800 marketers from around the country. In each session I attended, I sat next to marketers that were so excited to purchase and start using Hubspot. There was true excitement in their eyes about the prospect of how this tool can turn them into true marketing rockstars!

Hubspot has made a concerted effort to centralize as many marketing reports and capabilities as possible so you do not need to use separate tools for each component of marketing. It’s a true “all-in-one” marketing solution.

So What is Hubspot and What Does it Do?

The roots of Hubspot stem from the unique value of inbound marketing: provide high quality content for your audience to drive traffic through SEO and social media engagement, rather than the outdated model of cold calls and outbound efforts. “Hubspot 3,” the company’s latest version of software, takes inbound marketing to a much higher level by serving as the ONE centralized dashboard to manage all of your marketing. This database gives you a complete history of every interaction you have had with your leads and customers across channels. Some of the new features include:

• Smart Call to Actions: Enables you to create images and calls-to-action for your website or emails that dynamically adapt to reflect the viewer’s interests, industry, lifecycle stage, or other areas of segmentation. How cool is that?
  
• Smart fields: A long-awaited answer to anyone who is sick and tired of filling out yet another website form with the same information. As you collect more information about your leads, Smart Forms remove any field that has been completed in the past, creating shorter and shorter forms for your leads without sacrificing valuable information.
• Email: Target specific segments, and personalize your sender, subject, and message body content with any field or custom field from your contact profile.
  
• Workflows: Workflows enable you to create dynamically evolving segments and automate marketing actions. More than email automation, workflow enables marketers to trigger campaigns, change contact profile properties, score leads, send notifications, and sync to a CRM.

To learn more about Hubspot, request a demo.

So, we Twitter users all know that special feeling when get for about one second when we see that RT.  For those of you that are not up on Twitter lingo--and Twitter does have its own lingo, RT stands for "Re-Tweet", which means that someone forwarded a Twitter message intially sent by someone else.

For us Twitter addicts, a RT gives us that one second of satisfaction that our content is appreciated by others.  We also have particular appreciation for the person who sent the retweet.

The Truth About Retweets

But what really happens with that little retweet?  One day I inadvertantly sent out a tweet with a link that didn't work.  I still had 5 to 10 retweets from well-meaning friends.  But clearly they didn't read what I had sent.  And I don't blame them one bit because who has time to read all of the content that is sent over Twitter by those you follow?  If you did read it all, then you most certainly would never get any work done.

There is no doubt that people are reading what is sent via Twitter and that retweets help spread good content and increase follower rates.  But there's a tremendous dropoff between what is retweeted and what is read.  And this matters because Twitter should be driving traffic to your site and contributing to your marketing funnel.  Not just creating those annoying Tweet sounds on your desktop.

Comments?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.  For more statistics on Twitter usage, see this infographic.

Google just announced a new service called Google Drive.  It is not ready yet, but it's been announced that it is coming.

Google Drive sounds exactly like a service with enormous market share--Dropbox.  Dropbox has become extremely popular for its ease of use and for motivating users with a free offering and the ability to earn more free storage space by referring friends. Through this strategy Dropbox has an enormous installed base and has earned the praise of many for a genius marketing strategy.

So will People Leave Dropbox?

Dropbox has a lot (and I mean millions) of fanatic users.  And Google, well Google is seen as one of those giants that's never really created a large brand affinity in my opinion, other than for its primary product--search.  Google also does not have a great track record with coming out with a great "me too" offering.  Although many do use Google Plus, it has not exactly been a screaming success.

The only reason people would leave Dropbox is if pricing were considerably different.  Let's face it, this is a service targeting the consumer/prosumer and small business markets and people will be price-sensitive.  And this is what Google Drive is banking on. Google Drive plans to offer 5MB of free space rather than the 2GB of free space currently offered by Dropbox.  For paid users requiring more than 5MB of storage, Google Drive is offering an annual fee of $59.88 (at $4.99 per month) for 100GB of storage, while Dropbox currently costs $199 for 100GB of storage. Although Dropbox also has a 50GB plan for $99 per year.

Privacy Concerns

There has already been a lot of discourse over Twitter and the blogosphere about Google's Terms of Service and whether you want to subject your business to "big brother" Google.  According to ReadWriteWeb, "Google does reserve the right to reuse your data, publicly in some cases, and it shares that access across all Google services."  This article goes even further to suggest that if you really want privacy then you should encrypt your data before uploading. 

Well, let's face it, if you have enough concern that you want to encrypt your data before using the Google Drive service, then the service is clearly not for you.  Google Drive, is likely an easy sell for the large embedded base of businesses that use Google Docs.  These users have already agreed to Google's terms of service by conducting business using Google cloud tools.

Stay Tuned

No doubt we will all stay tuned to see how this pans out.  My money's on Dropbox--but they are going to have to drop their prices....

Comparz has user reviews and rankings for a wide variety of Online Data Backup solutions.  Click here to view Comparz' Online Data Backup Solutions rankings.

WordPress and Joomla are two of the most frequently used content management systems or, said in English, website platforms.  So what's the story with WordPress vs. Joomla?

They are both free because they are built using "open source" software that is built by the community.  Using WordPress or Joomla as your webssite platform can significantly reduce the overall cost of building and maintaing your website

The Cost Factor

The reason both WordPress and Joomla sites are cheaper to build and maintain is because there are easy ways to setup the sites yourself if you don't mind using one of their standard, free templates.  Or for a relatively small amout of money you can find Wordpress or Joomla developers that can customize your website design and functionality.  Because these platforms are so easy to use and there are so many WordPress and Joomla developers out there, the costs are low.  In addition, because they are both content managment systems, non-technical members of your team can update content easily without any intervention from someone technical.

What are the Differences Between WordPress and Joomla

It must be noted that WordPress has the highest market share of websites by a long shot. According to W3Techs, WordPress is used by 54% of websites that have content management systems.  What that means is there is a never ending supply of affordable developers to help build your WordPress site and an exhaustive list of free or very inexpensive plug-ins that can add functionality to your site.  WordPress is primarily known as a blogging platform, and that's where it shines. The software can quickly publish and edit content, as well as manage media files and tag posts.

WordPress and Joomla offer a lot of the same features. They both allow users to create sites that are easy to enter in content and manage for free.  Both systems also support a large number of users, so you can have multiple people writing posts and managing the content on your website.

WordPress shines as it has made it easy for the end user to enter in content.  It has been built for the business user who wants to enter content and not for developers.  Also for beginning developers, it is very easy to learn some simple programming to get a WordPress site up and running.  There are also many ecommerce plugins if you are building an ecommerce site and it is easy (with developers) to add community functionality to a WordPress site thorugh using the BuddyPress plugin.

Where Joomla shines is that it is better suited to handle more complex sites that are "data centric".  What that means is that if you will have multiple types of data that your website will display, such as handling detailed searches, having many attributes you want users to sort through on your site, Joomla is a great option and WordPress would not be able to handle this complexity. 

WordPress does have some areas in which it could improve. According to Jake Goldman, a WordPress rock star, "WordPress could stand to improve in having sites which support many different languages and could do better handling complex workflows." 

Cautionary Note

In either case, with WordPress or Joomla, because it is so easy to get started, there are a lot of subpar developers out there.  If you are building a very simple website, you are probably fine.  But, if you are looking to build a more complex site, doing your homework on the developers you select is priceless. 

Top tips for vetting these developers includes seeing what work they have done.  And it's not just about how good the site looks, it is also about whether the developer has made sites with similar types of functionality.  Lastly, ask for a lot of references for the developer and call them and ask them if they are happy with the developer's work, did they stay within budget, did they deliver on time and what they wish they had known before starting the website project.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' website management software rankings.

For those of you that don't know, SaaS means Software-as-a-Service.  Before you fall asleep, that just means web-based software, which can be as simple as Facebook.  Facebook is software that you use on the Web.  You just don't think of it that way because it is so easy to use.

SaaS and Your Business

SaaS can mean fantastic things for your business.  You can access all of the tools you need to grow your business online.  And, depending on the complexity of the software, you may be able to pay very minimal fees (or sometimes none) by the month.  This means easy, inexpensive access to everything from online phone systems, lead management software, online backup, accounting and much, much more.  These solutions tend to be easy to use, require no up front investment and often become indispensible to the functioning of your business.

So What's the SaaS Trap?

The SaaS trap is that most SaaS software is sold like a gym membership.  Your credit card is billed every month whether you use the application or not.  Some lower-end SaaS applications can be pretty inexpensive.  What's $19.99 a month on your credit card? 

The trap is that even as a busy business person, who may not even be paying the bills, you should keep your SaaS memberships up to date.  If you aren't using it, take the 10 minutes to track down the password and turn off your subscription (to the dismay of the SaaS company).  Or, better yet, maybe you should start using the application.  Carve out an afternoon and upload your data to the site, teach yourself the ins and outs of the platform and start getting business results from the platform.

SaaS is Awesome

SaaS is awsome and I happen to be one of its largest fans.  But only if you use it.  I talk with SaaS users of all types everyday and I often hear "we bought solution x but we don't actually use it yet."  And that's often for software that is thousands of dollars per month.

So my challenge to you is start using the software or stop paying for it!

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software rankings.

So is Corporate America really ready for real social media?  What do I mean by that?

I don't mean, do they have a Twitter account, or maybe even a Facebook page.  What I mean is are big brands ready for the scrutiny that social media and commentary of all types that result from social media.  These companies invest millions upon millions or even billions on brand building and social media can have a large negative impact on one of these billion dollar brands fairly quickly.

I say they have no choice, social media is here, so embrace it and learn how to deal with the feedback as a positive thing.  You find out customer feedback immediately without having to pry information out of users through canned surveys and focus groups, or worse, a huge drop in sales with no explanation.

The reason I bring this up is I chatted with one of these multi-billion dollar brands the other day (whose name I shall not reveal given this comment) that actually said "we would never participate in a ratings & review site because we want to protect our brand".  This was in reference to Comparz, which ranks business software according to user reviews.  I can see Hyatt or one of those large travel brands saying this about TripAdvisor 10 years ago, but can you imagine now TripAdvisor not having Hyatt hotels in its listings?

The even crazier part of this story is that this company actually sells social media software.  Hmmm.  This just really made me wonder if large brands aren't practising what they preach? Will their brand get erroded by the swift and nimble players that will use social media to help them build their brand, communicate with their users and take in feedback, whether positive or negative, to better their products and services?

I say use social media as an opportunity for market research and customer engagement.  What could be better?

Comparz provides in-depth user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to see Comparz's user reviews for a wide range of software solutions.

There is a lot of hype around Twitter these days.  While Twitter is a brilliant tool, it should not be the entirety of your marketing strategy.  The below graphic displays the inputs to the marketing funnel and how the funnel can lead to actual sales, which is what really matters to all of us.  As the data shows, it is tremendously difficult to get leads or sales from Twitter.

For those of you interested in learning more about the online marketing funnel, two great resources include: Hubpot's Marketing Grader and Marketo's Social Media Tactical Plan.

I started wondering the other day if Twitter is ruining LinkedIn.

Twitter has changed the behavior of how people connect. Sheer numbers of followers seems to be valued in the Twitter world and there is no assumption that you need to personally know your followers. In fact, I would guess that 99% of the time you aren’t going to know the person you’ve followed on Twitter and that’s ok --that’s the point of Twitter. I must admit that the best thing Twitter has enabled me to do is meet people and build actual relationships with people that I would never have met through other means.

But, as Twitter gets more popular, I notice that people who I don’t know have started to invite me to connect on LinkedIn in huge volumes. The original point of LinkedIn was to be linked to people you know and trust. Then, the LinkedIn platform enables you to request an introduction from one of your contacts if you would like to meet one of your contacts’ contacts (in fact I just happened to receive one of these requests as I was writing this blog).

But now with Twitter (and other forms of social media), people have much less hesitation to try to connect with those they don’t know. Number of followers or connections is seen as valuable. I’m amazed by the number of LinkedIn invites I receive daily from complete strangers who give no reason why I should connect with them.

There are no doubt two camps of LinkedIn types. The traditional camp that will ignore those requests from unknowns and limit their LinkedIn contacts to those that they have actual relationships. And the there’s the social media set that will likely accept more invitations via LinkedIn to follow the trend that more social contacts is better.

It’s not just a numbers game. The more LinkedIn connections you have, the more people can read your updates—meaning the more you can market to your audience. Google is also starting to take into account social media status, which is of course related to number of connections on the top social networks. What this means is now there is a lot of motivation for people to abandon the traditional camp of LinkedIn members and move to the new camp. Then the question remains, will that ruin Linkedin?

Please share your thoughts below!

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software rankings.

If you are looking to create more lasting relationships with potential and current customers, using marketing automation software is a worthy investment. Marketing automation has been shown to help deepen relationships by providing relevant information to your audience based upon actions they take or through the stage of the customer lifecycle they are in, among other factors.

Two of the lower-cost marketing automation providers are LoopFuse and Infusionsoft. Both companies have been around for many years and have built up a strong reputation among small and mid-sized businesses.

How do Loopfuse and Infusionsoft compare with each other?

LoopFuse and Infusionsoft offer many of the same features. They both have a fully functioning email marketing system that supports personalized emails and intelligent autoresponders, which send emails to end users when a certain action is taken by the end user.Both marketing applications also have a lead scoring system that allows leads to be graded by criteria such as number of actions a user has taken on your website or qualifications determined through a phone call, and segment them for targeting. In addition, the two products provide access to functions like lead nurturing, unique landing pages, and web analytics.

Infusionsoft does have a few capabilities that LoopFuse is missing. The application comes with a built-in CRM system that can automatically distribute leads to employees and standardize sales processes. It also supports a variety of eCommerce functions, such as an online shopping cart on your website to process payments and the option to offer discounts and trial versions.

The pricing plans for the two applications are slightly different. Infusionsoft starts off with the standard plan, which costs $199/month and supports 5,000 prospects and an unlimited number of emails per month. The higher tier plans support a much larger number of contacts, as well as more simultaneous users and additional features. Enterprise customers can have up to 500,000 prospects.

LoopFuse is notable in that all of its pricing plans offer an unlimited number of emails, page views, and simultaneous users. The main difference is the number of stored prospects that are allowed. For $450/month, a company can have up to 10,000 prospects, while $750/month increases this to 20,000 prospects. Enterprise-level customers can pay $2000/month to store up to 100,000 prospects.

LoopFuse also offers a free version of its application, though the capabilities are limited to 500 stored prospects, 5,000 emails, and 25,000 page views per month. Infusionsoft does not have any sort of free version, though it does offer a free trial that allows companies to try out the software ahead of time.

Customer support is fairly similar for the two products. They both provide phone and email support during normal business hours throughout the work week. LoopFuse is the only one that offers Live Chat to its users, however. This can provide a simplified means to get an answer about a basic problem or concern.

Infusionsoft definitely wins when it comes to mobile capabilities. The software is fully compatible with the iPhone, Android, and most tablet devices. LoopFuse does not currently have a mobile version of its application, though this may change in future versions.

Bottom line: Infusionsoft edges out LoopFuse in a few important categories. It has slightly better pricing and features, and can handle a greater number of stored contacts. They are both solid choices, however, and a marketing department can definitely benefit from having either at their disposal.

Comparz has user reviews and ranking of the marketing automation category. Click here to view Comparz' marketing automation rankings.

The irony is that we spend more time reading reviews on relatively inexpensive consumer services than on what real users have to say about business software and services that are expensive, time consuming, and where the wrong decision can create a huge cost to your business, not to mention a high degree of frustration. See the story illustrated below (please double click on the graphic for the best view):

The Internet is changing how businesses shop. While consumers have learned to check out review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor before going out to eat or taking a trip, business shoppers have been relying on more old school methods when selecting software and services.

Regardless of whether you have any technical sophistication these days you are expected to be Internet-savvy, to say the least, in your professional environment. The Internet has enabled the explosion of web-based software for every business function you can think of, making it necessary for even the most non-techie business manager and business owner to have a command of which tools their business or department should be using (e.g., everything from email marketing software to remote login tools to web conferencing software, etc.).

This is why we created Comparz.com, to give you a place to shop for web-based software and read what real users have to say. Comparz has over a thousand user reviews on over 150 types of web-based business software. In fact, we invite you to write a review for your favorite web-based software tool and help others learn from your experience.

The social enterprise platform space is HOT. Smoking hot. Yammer received $85 MILLION in venture capital investment very recently and Rypple was sold for about 100 times revenues to Salesforce.com, which already has Chatter, a social enterprise tool that works independently or with Salesforce.com’s flagship CRM solution.

The continuum of providers in this space seem to range from those that are used for social updates within the walls of a company (think Yammer and Chatter) and those that are focused on employee management via social means (think Rypple). 

Innovative subject tracking and new levels of integration with enterprise systems arrived with Tibco's Tibbr.

Another, lesser-known player in this space is Teamly, which represents those who want to combine productivity with social engagement in the workplace with workload planning.

As the name implies, Teamly is centered on teaming, goal setting, and feedback.  The core motivation for Scott Allison, founder of Teamly, is for employees “to spend less time in meetings and less time creating status updates.”  That certainly makes sense in the corporate world where we all spend a good part of the day in meetings and giving others updates rather than actually “getting work done.” 

With all the action and exciting new entries like Teamly, Rypple, and Tibbr, this is a very interesting space to watch. Check out what users have to say about these applications or write your own reviews if you have used the programs! 

The term “Consumerization of IT” has officially become part of our vernacular--as proof last week was the first conference on the topic. The conference speakers were generally those from big corporations with big IT departments concerned about how to handle employees bringing their own devices to work and how to handle social media across large corporations, among many other topics.    

One of the critical components of the discourse on the consumerization of IT is that our jobs are changing, whether you work in a large corporation or own a small business. To remain competitive, you need to gain mastery or at least hire those who have mastery of the right web-based tools to maximize the productivity of each function within your business.

Some examples include: web conferencing, email marketing, lead management, online data backup, but there are really hundreds of areas that could be relevant to your business.

Regardless of whether you have any technical sophistication these days, you are expected to be Internet-savvy. And professionally, this is extending to web-based software. The Internet has enabled this change as software has become accessible online and much easier for us non-techies to understand.

Ten years later, the business consumer is following in the footsteps of the traditional consumer. The Internet has forever changed how we buy traditional consumer goods and services, from travel to diapers to restaurant selection. Ecommerce, comparison shopping sites, and reading online user reviews have put billion-dollar companies such as Borders out of business and made TripAdvisor your default travel agent.

The same trends are forming in the business world. The market for web-based applications is growing daily. Many of these software companies offer free trials, which help us gain a bit of understanding of how they work before we buy. And there are sites like Comparz (of which I am the Founder) that help you shop for web-based software the way that TripAdvisor has taught you to shop for travel—by reading what real users have to say.

The Consumerization of IT is not going away, and for you this means don’t just get web-savvy but get web-software savvy to remain competitive in this ever-evolving economy in which we live.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software rankings.

While increasing numbers of SMBs recognize the importance of SEO, it is a very broad term, which means many different things and of which many of us have little knowledge.  I cannot tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say “I need to hire someone to do SEO,” but they are clueless as to what that actually means.  The result is that some SEO service providers will take advantage of that lack of knowledge. 

The first thing to realize is that SEO is a confluence of different skill sets, all of which you may not receive from one provider, even though they provide SEO services.  In addition, SEO is not a one-shot development effort, but a constant, ongoing process for your business. Thus, you cannot hire someone to “do SEO” for two weeks and think that you are done.

SEO in large part has to do with having highly relevant, highly interesting content.  That is what the search engines are seeking, and if you provide it they will reward you by placing you well in their organic results.

So you need to make sure you are covered across all the basic SEO components, which include:

• URL Construction—Ensuring that your URLs are constructed properly so that the search engines can read them properly. HTML/CSS coders generally handle this SEO component.

• Page Titles, Meta Tags and Image Tags—This is another way of telling the search engines what is on your page.  Page titling, meta tags and image tags can be done within a Content Management System by a non-technical type.  If you do not have a Content Management system (which is not a good idea), you will need an HTML/CSS coder to put in the terms.  However, the page titles and other words need to be highly relevant to the content on the page and then also highly relevant to the keywords you are targeting.

• Content—The most critical part of SEO is having relevant, regular, timely content.  The more of this you have, the more the search engines will like your site and the more that others will mention links to your site on their sites or via social media.  Content generation and dissemination is a writer/marketer’s job and is of course a completely different skill set than the person ensuring that your URLS are being created properly.

• Keywords—Choosing keywords that match the terms that users type into search engines is critical for your pages to achieve a high ranking. You should research the appropriate keywords and make sure they are embedded in your content, titles, link descriptions, etc.

• Links—The quality of the links that link to your site are considered in search engine rankings.  The general rule is to not to have too many (more than 10 to 20) links per page. 

• Site Map Submissions—This can be done by anyone but is usually done by a technical person.  This ensures that a continuous feed of your site map (what your site is about) is being given to the search engines.  That way when they crawl your site they have a “map” to understanding what is there.

SEO experts will employ a number of techniques to optimize your site for search engines—such as configuring your robots.txt file to direct crawlers in the most optimal way, and performing practices such as canonicalization, the art of making duplicate content appear as one item to a search engine crawler, using technique such as 301 redirects.

To properly "do SEO" you need to have all these bases covered. It can be different people or firms doing the work since it involves different skill sets. Your web development shop may be able to handle the HTML component but not be able to create compelling content. A good SEO firm should have all of the right skill sets in house. Without knowing everything that comprises SEO, you risk paying a lot of money without receiving the results you seek.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.

Check your AdWords account or ask your AdWords firm about how they are handling a concept called “broad match.”  Yes, this is a detail that you may not know about that could be costing you A LOT of money.  We all know AdWords can be a very effective method of obtaining relevant traffic and leads for your business.  But it also tends to be a very costly method for customer acquisition, and as such, it is important to understand the details in order to optimize your results.

All AdWords campaigns are automatically defaulted to “broad match.”  What this means is that if you selected the term “payroll solutions” to be one of your search terms, your ad will show on Google’s paid results for keywords that include both “payroll” or “solutions.”  This means that your keyword will be displayed in a lot of search results that are not very relevant, and any clicks are likely to be a waste of money. 

To turn off “broad match” you click on the checkbox to the left of a particular keyword.  Then you click on “edit” which is on the grey menu bar just above the keywords.  Then you select “edit in table” where you can change it to “exact match.”  You need to manually perform this operation for every keyword in your campaign.  While having your keyword on “exact match” will decrease your clicks, it will increase your quality and therefore your cost per acquisition.

Now, why does Google require you to manually turn on exact match for every keyword?  It’s clearly a way for them to make more money and provide you with more clicks, but not necessarily the right choice for your business.  For some companies with very large budgets, the broad match may make sense, but it would still need to be evaluated on a keyword-by-keyword basis…

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.

There's been a lot of buzz about Klout recently in the press because it changed its algorithm.  Klout is basically a tool that enables people to compare their social standing and "clout" based upon their participation on Twitter and Facebook.  It's a fun tool for those who like to track their social media success.  And it probably is fairly accurate in terms of the reach you have through these social networks.

But where Klout falls short, as other social media experts such as Pam Moore suggest, is that it does not dig a layer deeper.  Social media influence is growing in importance.  No one can deny that.  But social media clout does not capture one's actual skill other than in social media prowess.  There is a lot more that makes businesses run and succeed than social media clout.  While Klout is trying to list categories where people have clout, it is only based on social media activity versus real business results.

While Klout has potential, I don't think it has the clout it deserves yet.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.

Aren’t we all looking for ways to increase our productivity at work?  One simple way is to use video more.

Here are three great ways that video can improve your business productivity:

1. Videoconferencing.  If you haven’t started to use videoconferencing, you should.  The easiest way to do a one-on-one video conference is to use Skype.  It’s free and it’s a fabulous way to have a face-to face-conversation without leaving your desk.  If you have a larger group, there are plenty of web conferencing solutions that are not too expensive.  The top-5 web conferencing solutions Comparz.com has reviewed include: Join.me, WebEx, GoToWebinar, LotusLive, and Adobe Connect.  User reviews of these 5 tools are listed here.

2. Interviewing.  Interviewing of any type is so crucial to your business success.  Interviewing is an enormous time sink, yet it is so crucial to the success of your business.  This includes hiring team members, hiring contractors, or hiring vendors of any type.  There is a great new tool called TaketheInterview.com that can assist with all of these situations, using video to improve interviewing results and save time.  Taketheinterview.com is extremely easy to use and allows you to decide which questions you want your candidates to respond to.  Then the candidates can video their answers using their own simple video cam on their computers and provide you with an easy, quick way to narrow the playing field. 

3. Sales and Customer Support.  An informative video on your website can eliminate a ton of questions funneled to your sales or customer service lines.  You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to produce the video.  Use screen capture technologies such as Jing by Techsmith.  Create a simple video explaining how your product works or why a user would use it.  Then you can host it on YouTube and embed it in your site (very easily).  Answering common sales and support questions via video can reduce the time your sales and support personnel spend answering simple questions and allow them to focus on more value-added activity, thereby improving your business results dramatically.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.

Groupon is scheduled to launch an IPO tomorrow and some say it could have a valuation of $12 billion.  Regardless of Groupon's valuation and how you feel about the company, Groupon is a great story on the power of entrepreneurship.  The business you are working on today could be one "pivot" away from a billion dollar idea.

Four-and-a-half years ago I interviewed with the people behind Groupon, specifically Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, who provided the early funding for what became Groupon (I learned days later that my family was moving to Boston, so I didn't proceed with the conversations).  They were speaking to me about opportunities at their portfolio companies, one of which was thepoint.com, a site focused on effecting social change through collective group activity.  While ThePoint still exists today, it was the initial business that spurred the idea behind Groupon. 

It is amazing and inspiring to think that four-and-a-half years ago Groupon didn't exist and now Wall Street is valuing it at $12 billion.  The concept of the "pivot" has been popularized by Eric Ries' Lean Startup Methodology, which loosely defines a pivot as changing the strategic direction of a company based on user feedback.  A business (regardless of the size) should be constantly testing its operating assumptions by getting customer feedback every step of the way.

To all of you entrepreneurs, keep listening to your customers, think big, and execute quickly, and within a few years you could be the next Groupon as well.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.

I'm a huge fan of Twitter and I actively use it.  But Twitter is not about the number of followers you have.  I cannot tell you how many profiles I see of people who have over 25,000 followers, but they are not on any Twitter lists.

A Twitter list is a way to see a Twitter stream of select individuals you have grouped together.  This is a great way to segment your Twitter list and see what certain segments are talking about.  To be put on a list is generally an honor of sorts, as it means that someone deems you an expert in a certain area. 

When I see people with over 25,000 Twitter followers but they are on little to no lists, that screams Twitter spammer to me. This individual has found a way to get follow backs, but likely they aren't really leaders in their respective fields. 

So, what are good Twitter metrics?  I say the list-to-follower ratio is the best metric of whether to follow someone.  The higher the ratio, the better.  Also, the balance between followers and followed is interesting (although less important than the list to follower ratio in my opinion).  In general, it's nice to see a somewhat equal follower-to-followed ratio.  Some hot shots don't follow many back, which is fine, and obviously people love what these people have to say, but let's just say it's a bit elitist. And on the other end, if users have many more followed vs. followers, they are likely just listeners, which is perfectly fine, you just might now want to follow them.

All of that said, Twitter or any other form of social media is all about connecting with real people.  Keep that in mind as you use it.  Reach out and meet people.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.

Social CRM may sound like a fancy term but all it means is integrating your contact’s social media information into your current arsenal of knowledge about prospects and customers.  Many companies use systems that are called CRMs (Customer Relationship Management) systems to keep track of client and prospect information and share that information effectively within a company.  Now, Social CRM platforms are taking tradition CRM one step further.

Here’s why you should know about Social CRM.

1.    You Are Ignoring Important Information About Your Customers and Prospects If You Aren’t Using Social CRM

Remember when you used to scramble for a recent news story on a company before you met with them so you could have some topics to chat about during your pitch?  Well now with social CRM, you can have your customer or prospect’s latest social media conversations integrated into your CRM (contact management) system.  Due to the transparency and timeliness of social media, you can see what your prospects or customers are up to as recently as a second ago, any relevant personal or business information about them, and who they may be able to introduce you to—and have this all on one interface that your entire company can see simultaneously. 

If one of your prospects just tweeted that her company just released a new product today, you should reflect this in your conversations with her.  This information is out there and if you aren’t taking advantage of it, you will be less likely to appear up to date.  These new Social CRM systems save you from having to check 10 screens.  All of the information you need is in one place.

2.    Social CRM Tools Will Replace Traditional CRMs

Whether it’s a traditional CRM system adding social features, or “new” CRM systems that are built with social media as a key driver, your contact management system needs to be highly integrated with social media. A good “social” CRM solution will integrate your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn contact information and feeds with your email inbox and with all the contact information, communication history, and workflows within your organization stored in your traditional CRM systems.  It will allow you to assign tasks to other members of your team, schedule appointments, share social messages with team members, all through one interface.  Due to the fact that social networking is not going to go away and it is the most efficient way to stay up to date with contacts, it makes sense to start integrating all of your contact information through a “social” lens.

3.    You Can Try Social CRM for Free

Currently two of the top, leading-edge new “social” CRM companies are completely free, so why not try them? These providers are Nimble and Gist.  While these companies are both planning to come up with paid versions, they are free now and are great examples of the easy interfaces that join Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email and traditional CRM features. 

Nimble is a cloud-based tool, which means you only need a Web browser in order to start using it.  Nimble presents all your contacts on a single screen and allows you to manage them as a whole, including information from all social media sources and eliminating the need to jump from window to window and cut and paste information.  Gist requires an easy install using a series of browser plug-ins.  Gist aggregates all of your social and traditional information on your contacts in one place.  Gist prioritizes your contacts based upon importance of your relationship so most relevant information displays first.

Some of the traditional CRM systems have also added social tools to their existing CRM systems.  One CRM solution known for doing this is Batchblue’s Batchbook.  For user reviews on some of the leading Social CRM tools, visit business tools review site Comparz's Social CRM rankings.

In conclusion, social media needs to become part of your contact and lead management strategy.  Fortunately, there are systems out there that let you easily manage this.  The key is having an easy interface so that you don’t have to have 10 screens open in order to keep track of your customer and prospect relationships.

Perhaps you have heard the term “the Cloud”.  If you have not, it is important for you to understand what it means for your small business. The term “the Cloud” can be defined as a way to use the Web to store your company’s data and applications.  Here are the 5 things you need to know about the Cloud:

1. The Move to the Cloud is Inevitable as Signaled by Big Companies

Even the largest of companies with enormous security needs are moving to the Cloud. For example, last week I spoke with an IT Director of a multi-Billion dollar financial institution and they too are moving to the Cloud.  If such large data-sensitive corporations are storing their data in the Cloud, chances are that your company should be too.

2. Cloud Service Providers Decrease Your Costs and Risk

Cloud service providers are springing up and they mean freedom from having an individual have to manage your servers.  The Cloud service providers become responsible for managing all aspects of server management so you can focus on your core business.  Cloud services tend to be cheaper and your risk is decreased because you are not reliant on a local individual to fix your server, whether your server is located at your company or not.

3. The Cloud is Not a Perfect Solution, But Neither is Your Current Hosting Setup

The Cloud is not perfect.  There can be outages.  One of the largest Cloud hosting providers, Amazon’s EC2 has gone down for periods of time and hundreds of thousands of sites go down with it. You are also granting control of your data, your company’s core assets, to a third party.  That said, chances are you were (or are) already granting access to your data to a third party, whether it is your IT manager or your outsourced IT shop. 

4. Cloud Applications Means “Big Business” Functionality as Long as You have a Web Browser

Now, the fun part of the Cloud is the thousands of applications that you can take advantage of, all with nothing but a Web browser.  This means, no downloads, installations, software maintenance and less technical headaches.  There are hundreds of categories of Cloud applications, but some big ones are marketing tools, such as email marketing, contact management systems, accounting, project management and collaboration tools. 

Cloud apps (often referred to as Software as a Service, or SaaS applications) are often substantially cheaper than installed applications and they enable you to access the apps on almost any Internet browser and, oftentimes, mobile devices as well.  With Cloud apps, there are not maintenance issues to concern yourself with and because they are cost-effective your small business has access to “big business” types of tools.   

Many Cloud apps have free trials so you can try before you buy, some have free versions for low-volume users and pricing is often by the month with no contract so there is little investment required.

Top 5 listings of highly regarded cloud apps for small business can be found here: email marketing, accounting, web conferencing, online data backup and more.

5. Understanding How Cloud Apps Work Before You Commit Will Reduce Your Risk of Dissatisfaction

With Cloud apps you are putting your company’s data into an application you don’t own.  If you want to switch applications, you will have to make sure there is a way to get your data out (look into this before you buy the app).  You also may need some of the applications to “talk” to each other.  For example, you may want your email-marketing program connected to your contact management system.  This can be accomplished either through applications that are pre-integrated or applications that have something called an API which means a coder can somewhat easily get the application to share data with another. 

Another issue with cloud apps is that some of the vendors offer very little customer support.  However, some vendors offer tremendous support, which is sometimes reflected in the price of an application.  If support is important to you then it will be worth paying more.  Lastly, if you are switching from an “installed” application to a Cloud application, you may need to hire a consultant to help with the data transfer, which will of course be an additional expense.

Comparz provides user reviews and rankings of software services and tools for small and mid-sized businesses. Click here to view Comparz' business software reviews and rankings.