By Gail Seymour

Companies that provide list segmentation and data append services have been around almost as long as direct mail. Some will take your existing database and fill in the blanks, others will verify, clean and remove duplicate information. A recent development is the emergence of companies like FlowTown that allow you to append data obtained from social media profiles about a person to his email address. (more…)

By Samantha Gluck

Social media use has experienced an explosion in popularity in recent years. With the advent of smartphones that can access the Internet, email and just about everything in between, many employees can access work files from home or other places. This fact has caused the once sharply demarcated line between personal life and work to become blurred. Just as employees may feel compelled to finish up a work project at home, they also feel compelled to check on personal social media and email accounts at work. Employers feel this is wasting time on the company dime — so to speak. They struggle with creating policy around personal Internet use and its implications. (more…)

By Janet Attard

If you ever go to a conference at which Guy Kawasaki is speaking, make sure you get to his talk early enough to get a good seat. Entertaining, informative, and as he admits, sometimes a bit controversial, a Kawasaki's keynote can make attending the conference a good investment for any size business. (more…)

By Melissa J. Luther

Google Buzz definitely has the Internet buzzing, but it is too early to tell how much impact it will have in the social networking arena. Google was uncharacteristically late joining the game and may face an uphill battle for relevance. On the other hand, Google’s overall popularity could give Buzz the boost it needs. (more…)

By CC Pearce

Businesses are able to benefit from the harnessing the power of social media to spread news and hype about a company's offerings. One of the biggest new players to the social media scene is Google Buzz, a platform that integrates with a number of social services as well as a Google account. (more…)

By Gail Seymour

Here is our list of the top 10 Web sites your contracting business needs to appear on: (more…)

By Monique Martin

With its recent rollout of Buzz, Internet behemoth Google is going head-to-head with social networking giant Twitter. As these two Web giants face off, small business owners are left wondering if it’s time to stop tweeting and start buzzing. (more…)

By Anton Pearce

Have you thought about using Twitter to market your business? Twitter is free, and available to small and large businesses. Here are some tips and tricks on using Twitter to promote your business.

Here are four tips to use your Twitter account effectively. Following other Twitter accounts that are in your target demographic will help you get an idea of what the conversation is. Then you need to post updates about your company, brand or product. As with any online medium, you want to be very careful to not spam any of your followers. Lastly, make sure that you follow successful online marketers, and look for other participants who are in your industry. (more…)

By Joanna Fletcher

As business owners, we are constantly searching for groups of people who have something in common—a set of needs or characteristics—so that we can market our business to them effectively. An Internet forum can form just such a pool of potential customers, but it takes finesse to join an online community and market to them without alienating them.

In an online community, people are gathered from all over the world because of some common interest. The interest can really be anything, from the novels of Agatha Christie, to kids with ragweed pollen allergy, to the world's greatest bacon. You can find groups in all kinds of formats; Yahoo groups, for example, allows you to search their group lists once you have set up a free account. (more…)

By Monique Martin

If you’re new to the world of social media, it can feel like people are talking another language. They tweet, follow, unfriend and fan each other. But, what does it all mean? Facebook and Twitter are the top two social networking sites in the world. With hundreds of millions of users, no small business can overlook their potential. (more…)