SmallBusinessNewz

How a Brand Defines Your Business

A brand can take as long as several years to build but can be damaged, and even destroyed, by something as small as a tweet. That's scary, huh? It is also why branding is such a challenging task.

Online Reputation Management for Local Businesses

Online reputation management has been critical for local businesses for as long as consumers have been researching businesses online. With the rise of blogs, social media, and review sites, not to mention continued innovation in local search and local discovery apps, the need for reputation monitoring has only grown and will continue to do so as the way people discover info about local businesses gets more and more diversified.

Online Ratings Sites Heavily Used By Consumers

A new survey commissioned by LexisNexis and Martindale-Hubbell found that online ratings web sites are being used quite heavily among small business owners and consumers, but concerns about the reliability and trustworthiness of current resources linger. Over 90 percent of small business owners polled and 80 percent of consumers surveyed engage in some kind of activity on review and ratings Web sites.

Recovering from an "Overly Successful" Marketing Campaign

Have you had a marketing or promotional campaign fail as a result of being too successful? When a small business embarks on a marketing campaign, it does as any marketing expert would advise and sets realistic goals. But what if those "realistic" goals are exceeded?

5 Steps to Manage Your Brand's Reputation On Your Own

You probably know by now that protecting the reputation of your brand online is critical to success. Word spreads fast on the Internet, and whether or not something is true, it can spiral out of control in a short time. That is why it's important to monitor what people are saying about your product, your business, and their experiences in dealing with you.

Manage Your Online Reputation in Real Time

We've discussed online reputation management repeatedly at SmallBusinessNewz, but are you using real-time tools that are available to you to monitor and defend your reputation? The web is much more about conversation than it once was. It used to be that most web-based conversation took place mostly in email or on forums. Now the conversation is everywhere. It's on Twitter. It's on Facebook. It's on blogs. It's EVERYWHERE.

SBMU: Getting Started in Social Media

Everywhere we turn we see a social media presence. Look at the recent Presidential election and how social media was used in it. Think about how advertisers utilize social media. If time permitted, I could go on and on with more examples. The point of these examples are to show that social media has a place in everything including small-to-medium size businesses.

SBMU: Reputation Management for Social Media

Social media allows for many lines of communication to be opened, but it also opens the door for negativity to come in and attack. You've worked hard to build your brand, so don't let a little negativity come in and destroy all you've done. Christina Kerley, the founder of ckEpiphany Marketing who is better known as "CK", spoke at SBMU Columbus on how to manage your online reputation and protect your brand.

Transparency Leads to Trust

Businesses are often hesitant to operate blogs and social media personas. They are also wary of how their reputations will be shaped, and this is certainly a concern they should have, but the prospect of negativity being introduced with regards to your business isn't necessarily the gallows pole. In fact, negativity can often breed positive results in the long run.

Survey: Small Businesses Hiring For the Holidays

The holidays are approaching. Regular SmallBusinessNewz readers are probably getting tired of hearing me say that by now.