Better Facebook is a free user script that plugs into your browser of choice adding enhancements and can’t-live-without features to your existing Facebook account. It could not be easier to install and it supports all of the most-popular browsers. (While I did say free, keep in mind that most developers are enabled to keep their products up to date and enhanced through the receipt of donations. If you like this script, be sure to use the most important feature: click to donate to Better Facebook.)

Once installed, Better Facebook provides you better, easier control over Facebook features, but more importantly, provides you a host of new options. For those of you who post to Facebook regularly (I’m thinking of you, Jeanie), you’ll wonder how you’ve managed without it thus far. Better Facebook has handily gathered all of the most-popular features in the first pane of the dialogue box, but don’t miss an opportunity to shuffle through and try out the other options.

Launch the preferences window by clicking the Better Facebook options link in the menu bar and then cruise through the settings.

75 new features

There are more than 75 individual Facebook-control options in Better Facebook, including:

• Tabbed News Feeds — Organize your posts by moving them to tabbed groups. This type of classification means that you can set aside reading material for the train or afternoon log-in.

• Advanced Feed Filters — When you want full control over visible posts, use Feed Filters to define rules that move stories to separate tabs. This enables you to logically group the posts.
• Hide Posts You’ve Already Read — When you’re Ms. Popularity, you probably have more feeds that you can possibly manage in a day, making for a long-scrolling list. If you’re logging in throughout the day, you need to try to find where you’ve left off. With Better Facebook, hide your read feeds. Don’t worry, though, it’s just hide, not delete.
• Highlight New Comments — When you have a hidden post with a new comment, Better Facebook automatically unhides the feed so that you can keep up on late-breaking developments.
• Static Header And Left Column — Set the top header and/or the left-navigation column to sticky so each is always visible as the page is scrolled.
• Quick Links — For easy access to your pages, events, groups, apps, and friends, use the left-navigation panel to display links to all the pages you like, upcoming events, groups of which you are a member, favorite apps, and all your friends. Optionally, you may hide items.
• Notification Of Un-Friends — Facebook does not provide notification when you have been unfriended, but with Better Facebook, you’ll receive automatic notifications and links to their profile page.
• Show Group Activity — Using the Group Activity panel, you’ll receive automatic updates about the goings on in your groups of which you are a members.
• Show Friend Activity — Keep up with profiled changes of your friends with a panel that conveniently displays all changes.
• Expand Similar Posts — For Facebook gamers that were unhappy when Facebook created expand similar post, Better Facebook provides the option to automatically expand these links and, optionally, list the posts in chronological order.
• Character Counter In Status Updates — A character counter provides you a dynamic character counter that lets you know you’re approaching the limit before publishing.
• Enhanced Left-Column Navigation — Definable links can be added to the left-navigation bar and for messages, events, photos, and friends sections, you have the option to expand them as well.
• Automatically Retrieve Older Posts — Provides an older posts link that will display earlier posts that have been hidden.
• Pin Notifications — Optionally pins a notifications window to the right side of your Facebook display.
• Custom CSS/Skins — For the HTML-savvy user, link to an external CSS file to achieve a completely custom display.
• Reclaim Privacy — An automatic check of your privacy settings to ensure your private information remains private.
• Hide Email Address Update Notification — Due to Facebook’s status as a blacklisted site, many users are continually annoyed by a please update your email address warning. With Better Facebook this warning is permanently hidden.
• Feed Filters — Evaluation and application of rules to feeds. This enables easy grouping, sorting, and more. If a filter rule matches a post, then the action is applied to the post.
  • Author
  • Type
  • Application
  • Other
  • Action
    • Minimize
    • Apply CSS Class
    • Move to Tab
    • Stop processing rules
  • Other Options
  • Automatically move known App posts to tab

Facebook has left a number of other social-media sites in its wake due in part to serious developers such as Matt Krause expending a great degree of effort toward taming the application and turning it into a serious tool. Better Facebook will create a more user-friendly environment for every type of user, but the more dedicated the user, the more these tools will be appreciated.

Travel Table is a lightweight, plastic portable laptop table that uses your wheeled luggage for legs. When unfolded, there are collapsing hooks that fit the cross bar of your bag’s handle, locking pins to hold it in place, and stabilizers that can be adjusted to level the table on any type of bag using the hook-and-eye straps.

Folded, Travel Table is only 1.5” in depth, meaning it is small enough to fit in your briefcase, laptop case, or an outside pocket of your luggage.

Travel Table arrived with absolutely no assembly required. I popped out the hooks, attached it to the back, and adjusted the strap so the table was level. When attached it is a full 18” wide; plenty wide for my 17″ MacBook Pro, but for a smaller DVD player or other device, you’d have lots of room left over. (Maybe it needs a cup holder.) If your luggage handle is tall enough, you could use the table while standing or sitting.

Stop wandering the airport waiting rooms looking for the perfect place to wile away an extended layover, use Travel Table and you’ll be limited to just searching for an outlet.

Travel Table is available direct from the Travel Table website.

Quick glossary:

List segmentation — the process of dividing your customer list or database into logical buying groups.

Targeted messaging — the process of creating messaging that specifically resonates with a person or group. For example, adding images of scantily clad women to emails being sent to men or images of muscle-bound men to emails being sent to women.

Targeted landing page — a web page with content specifically targeting or engaging the visitor.

Analytics — the process of tracking, monitoring, and tallying the number customer reactions to a particular campaign.

Gathering lists

By way of example, let’s take a look at the fictional car dealership, Rocket Auto.

Rocket Auto has a customer list of previous buyers. They’re fortunate because in the buying process most customers completed a credit application that is chock full of valuable marketing data, such as age, gender, marital status, income level, and more.

There’s a second list: Rocket Auto asks every shopper to complete a buyer-profile card. For customers who do not actually buy, this is used as a follow-up tool. The profile card has a lot of the same information as would be found in a credit application, in fact, even more. When they survey customers, they also ask questions about the type of car for which they are shopping: is this a primary car, a secondary car, a luxury car, a car for the kid, and the like. This helps the salesperson keep an eye out for an appropriate vehicle if the customer leaves without making a purchase.

Segmenting a list

What Rocket Auto is lacking is the understanding of how to use this data, so let’s take a look at one possibility.

The first part of the list segmentation is already done for them: buyers and shoppers (those who did not buy).

We’ll start with a campaign design. For their first foray into list segmentation, they will offer a buying credit of $2500 for which they will create two versions:

1. Thank you for your business. (Thank You version, going to buyers.)
2. Come see our new inventory. (New Inventory version, going to shoppers.)

The second segmentation effort will divide the two lists into logical buying groups. They’ll segment by gender, age, and income — it breaks down like this:

Group A: Men who earn less than $50k

21-40

41-55

55+

Group B: Women who earn less than $50k

21-40

41-55

55+

Group C: Men who earn more than $50k

21-40

41-55

55+

Group D: Women who earn more than $50k

21-40

41-55

55+

Group E: Men who earn more than $100k

21-40

41-55

55+

Group F: Women who earn more than $100k

21-40

41-55

55+

When we divide both lists as shown above, this makes a total of 24 versions: Thank You group A – F and New Inventory group A – F. While this may sound like a lot, Rocket Auto knows that targeting their messaging will improve their response rates. If Rocket Auto gains even two new customers because the message was appropriate for, and engaging to, the recipient, spending that extra time up front will have been well worth the effort.

Messaging and call to action

To appeal to these disparate buying groups, Rocket Auto will change the graphics and the headline on each of the 24 emails, but the messaging will remain essentially the same.

Graphics are a very important part of any email, so Rocket Auto is giving careful thought to the type of graphic that will appeal to each segment.

Note: There are lots of stock-image suppliers, such as BigStock, iStock, PhotoLibrary, and more, and all provide images as inexpensively as $1 each. With prices such as this, it’s very affordable to create custom messaging for each group.

The most-popular emails these days are those that combine text and imagery. This is an HTML format or an HTML table format with sliced images — and usually requires the help of a professional.

Note: HTML formats are not a requirement, you can send a purely text email, but you may be risking a few response-rate percentage points just to save on the cost of a designer.

In each email Rocket Auto is including a call to action (CTA). In these emails the CTA will be, “Click here to print a voucher for $2500 off your next purchase.”

Select an email service

Rocket Auto uses Constant Contact (a web-based email system) to upload each of the list segments separately (naming them in way that they can easily figure out who is who). With the lists imported, Rocket Auto then uploads the 24 emails and connects each to the appropriate list. A few quick previews and they are ready to send.

Rocket Auto chose Constant Contact® because it has a really great analytics system. Once each email has been sent, they will be able to track who opened their email, who clicked on links, who unsubscribed, and more. (We’ll come back to this in a moment.)

Figure 1: Constant Contact is a simple-to-use we application that automates your emails. It is very reasonably priced and provides a dashboard loaded with analytic data about the emails that you send. You can even compare your email response rates with others in the same industry.

Note: There are other email services such as Mail Chimp, Eloqua, and Exact Target, but for ease of use and features, my choice is Constant Contact. If you have a small list, you may not need a service, and in that case, I recommend DirectMail or MaxBulk Mailer.

Targeted landing pages

There are a number of marketing professionals that find no value in creating targeted landing pages, but I could not disagree more. A targeted landing page serves a number of purposes, but consider this: If Rocket Auto sends out 24 emails to a total of 25,000 people (the combined count of the two lists), and they send all visitors to their home page — even with great analytics software — they will have to manually figure out from which list each visitor came.

For tracking analytics, it’s far easier to create targeted landing pages and the custom messaging of each page will produce better results. By matching the design of the page to the email message, a targeted landing page and makes the visitor feel as though they’ve come to the right place.

A visitor should not have to wander around the home page trying to figure out what link to click to find the voucher. Also, if Rocket Auto put the voucher on their home page, any visitor would be able to print it. This would skew results and Rocket Auto would not know how successful their email campaign had been.

Rocket Auto’s targeted landing pages should use the same images, the same basic design, and the same content as their email. However, since a landing page provides so much more real estate, there is plenty of room to define offer details, add links to other pages within the site (called deep links), add links to other sites, create registration forms, and much more.

Add it all up

In doing the math, we now have two lists, 12 segments each (resulting in 24 emails), and 24 targeted landing pages. (You can gain even more if your email provides more than one link for the customer and each of those links also goes to a targeted landing page…but, I digress.)

With the list segmentation, emails designed, and targeted landing pages posted Rocket Auto is ready to send. The only thing left to do is sit back and wait for results.

When Rocket Auto logs into their Constant Contact dashboard (the administrative page of their account), results are displayed instantly and updated dynamically. Through the dashboard they are able to monitor:

• How many have been sent (so far)
• How many have bounced (and why)
• How many of customers reported this email as spam
• How many customers have opted out (asked not to receive future emails)
• How many have been opened
• How many have been forwarded
• How many times a link has been clicked
• Who clicked each link

Having uploaded each group into a separate email list, Rocket Auto has this information for each segment of both the Thank You list and of the New Inventory list. With a quick scan, and because Constant Contact provides an overview that enables the user to compare the results of multiple mailings against each other, Rocket Auto can easily see that male buyers between the ages of 41 – 55 and who make more than $100k, produced the best result in both campaigns and clicked through 45% of the time.

With that said, let’s go have a look at their targeted landing page results.

Target landing page analytics

Rocket Auto can track the analytics of a web page in the same way that Constant Contact tracked the analytics of an email. This is done using Google® Analytics, a free service from Google.

When Rocket Auto signed up for a Google Analytics account, they were provided a unique identifying code and a dashboard for tracking results. This dashboard looks very much like the dashboard of Constant Contact and provides the same results, and much, much more. With Google Analytics, Rocket Auto can monitor:

• Number of visitors to each page
• How long the visitor stayed on each page
• Bounce rate (number of visitors who came to the site and left without visiting another page)
• Total number of pages that were visited
• Average number of pages that each visitor saw
• What percentage of visitors are new to the site
• From where in the world the traffic originated
• What search phrases were used to find the page
• And more

To use Google Analytics, Rocket Auto’s web-page designer embedded the unique code at the bottom of each of the targeted landing pages. Then, each time that page is displayed the tracking system will monitor all of the user’s actions. Google Analytics will even time how long the user stays on the page, and this can be important information.

Figure 2 Google Analytics is a free web application that enables you to monitor the traffic at your web site, or any web site to which you have verifiable access.

If Rocket Auto send their visitors a link to a page that is laden with text, but the analytics show that the average user is spending less than five seconds on the page, Rocket Auto can assume that the visitor is not reading the message. On the other hand, if their average user spends 4.5 minutes on the page, it looks as though the messaging resonates with the visitor and they are spending the time to read it.

Putting it all together

At the campaign’s end, Rocket Auto has learned a great deal, such as:

• 4.6% of the recipients went to the landing page and printed the voucher
• 22% had brought the voucher in within one week,
• 45% of those who redeemed the voucher were men over 41
• 68% of the men who redeemed the voucher earned more than $100k per year

Here’s something else: Due to the segmenting effort they put in, Rocket Auto now has a clean list of men in that age group and of that income bracket that have received emails (whether or not they clicked, they did not opt out), which leaves them open to receiving additional offers. Rocket Auto is already queuing up a new sports-car campaign targeted specifically at these men.

What the campaign taught Rocket Auto overall is that spending marketing dollars on buyers that are under $40 and make less than $50k produced nearly no results. It’s pretty safe to bet that since they are buyers (they already made a recent purchase) with a limited income, they simply don’t have the money to add a second vehicle, even with a $2500 voucher. Perhaps they should wait for a year or two before sending them offers to save on their next vehicle.

Segmenting your list combined with targeted marketing and analytics will make you a better marketer. Sometimes the segments aren’t effective with a particular messaging. You might need to send several offers to the same segments in order to ferret out the real details about your customer, but no one needs a scientific study to tell them that messaging on a topic that they find interesting is more effective that bulk mail meant for the masses.

The importance of your web presence

It’s easy to underestimate the power of the web when it comes to your self-promotion but at time when yellow-page directories are finding their way more quickly to recycling centers, in order to survive and grow your company you will need to recognize and embrace new tools.

As an entrepreneur, it’s not just your company’s presence on the web it’s also your personal presence. At New York University, recruiters from about 30 companies told career counselors that they were looking at [personal web postings] on the web when considering candidates for employment. If employers are searching the web for personal information, you can bet that so are your potential and current clients.

Where are you now?

When you search using any of the popular search engines, the information returned is called the search-engine results or SER. When you, a business associate, or potential client, search for your name or your company’s name, are the SER favorable?

If you are an entrepreneur and have approached an important potential client are they able to find you on the web and come away feeling confident that you are an industry leader? Would they believe that you are very capable at providing the services that you have asserted?

Here you will learn to raise the level of visibility of your company, services, and skills, and just as importantly, lower the visibility of information currently on the web that may be incongruent or detrimental to the goals to which you aspire.

What is a spider?

A spider is a software application that browses web pages for the purpose of indexing content and providing results to a search engine. (Also called search spider or search robots.)

SER are often hit-or-miss propositions, but they don’t have to be completely arbitrary. There are thousands, maybe millions, of people and companies who specialize in manipulating web spiders to provide higher ranking for products. This process of manipulation is called search-engine optimization or SEO. To be effective at self-promotion, you must identify your current SER and affect that SER by populating the web with a great deal of positive content that is congruent with your goals.

This type of self-promotion is the SEO of you, the entrepreneur.

Opinion and review sites

In the pursuit of self-promotion, it often becomes necessary to give voice to what other people think. Opinion sites such as Yelp! provide a different kind of network where visitors leave comments, recommendations, and criticisms about businesses with whom they have had interaction. These comments, left by your customers as an endorsement or warning, can be a real boost in SER, especially when it’s a glowing testimonial.

Directories

Not all sites should be submitted to directories, it depends upon the service or products that you provide. Think about it this way: would my company benefit from a yellow-page ad? If the answer is yes, then online directories — the yellow pages of the twenty-first century — would likely be a good self-promotion vehicle for you.

Unlike search engines, many directories do not go out looking for new sites to add, you have to go to them.

There are hundreds of sites available and they vary in reach from city, to regional, to state, to nation, to world. Before you submit your site for consideration to these sites, be sure that the site’s target audience is also your audience. If you cannot provide services on a world-wide basis and you’re based in Denver, don’t submit your site to a directory in Yemen.

More visibility is not always good visibility.

There are software applications to automate the creation of site maps but the purpose of this whitepaper is to show you how to create a site map for your HTML site for free.

1. Create a list of all of the pages in your site.

Since a site map is a list of all of the pages within your site, you need to first generate a list. Depending upon the size of your site, this could be a very big project or an easy task. Assuming that you have a few dozen or less pages, and that you have access to your file list, you can make your own list of articles and pages. (If your HTML site has more than 50 or so pages, I recommend the Google Sitemap Automator from RAGE Software.)

Log in as the administrator of your site using an FTP software or using the file-manager software that your hosting company provides (as I have shown below).

Figure 1 When you access your site using an FTP software or the file manager application provided by your hosting company, you can get a view of every page of your site. This makes it easy to create a list to be used at a site map. Don’t forget to look inside folders for other nested folders or files. If you don’t want a page to be returned in search results, don’t include it in the list.

Your view may be different, but look for the similarities.

If I were to make a list of files for this site, it would look something like this:

http://www.cshaffstall.com/articles.html

http://www.cshaffstall.com/books.html

You may use any word processor to create your list, but do not bother to format it. All formatting will be lost when you save the file as a plain text file.

If you have folders in your site directory, you might have an entry that looks like this:

http://www.cshaffstall.com/resources/new-story.html

You might have lots of nested folders, and in that case, separate the folder and file names with slashes as I have done in the example above.

Here are more guidelines for an effective site-map list:

• Do not put more than one URL on a line.
• When you save the file, save it as a plain- or simple-text file in UTF-8 encoding. Generally this is an option during the save process.
• Do not include any information other than a list of URLs.
• Save the file with a .txt file extension.
• Name the file something descriptive, such as c-shaffstall-sitemap.txt.

Use the file manager software provided by your site-hosting vendor and upload the file to the root directory of your site (generally this is wwwroot, public_html, or something similar).

2. Create a Google Webmaster account.

Now that you have a site map, you need to tell Google about it. Google has a host of tools for the webmaster and most of them are free. Start by creating a Google Webmaster account.

Figure 2 Google provides a host of tools for improving and monitoring the performance of your site. Create a Google Webmaster account and add tools to this account as you develop a need.

Once you have created and acknowledged the account using the email Google will send you, add your site to your management dashboard. Click the add a site button and type your URL into the modal dialogue box that appears. Click continue.

Figure 3 Once you have your account set up, click the add a site button and type your URL in the field that pops up. Click continue.

You may add as many sites as you choose, but each site must be verified.  This step is to ensure that you are not monitoring or changing the settings of a site that does not belong to you. The verification process requires that you have administrative access to the site, either personally or through a webmaster.

There are three methods of verification available to you. I generally choose the either the first or the second method, because they’re both very easy to do. In both cases, however, you will need to upload or modify pages within your site. If this worries you, phone your webmaster and ask for help. It is possible to damage your site and without a recent backup, you risk creating a lot of unnecessary work for lots of colleagues.

Meta tag. You or your webmaster should copy and paste the text provided into the head section of the source code of your home page.

Upload an HTML file. Click the link provided to download the HTML verification file and upload it to your site. If you do not personally have access, email this file to your webmaster and ask that [s]he post it to the root directory of your site.

Figure 4 In order to add your site, you must verify that you have administrative access.

Once the source code has been modified or the page uploaded, click the verify button to have Google check for the file and verify that you have administrative access that enabled you to either modify the source code or upload a file. If you were successful, Google will display the dashboard with your site listed.

3. Benchmark your current positioning.

In order to appreciate the improvements, you have to know where you are now. The best way I’ve found to monitor traffic is to use the Google Analytics tool. You created a Google account in step two, so you can just add this new option to that account.

Log in to Google Analytics using the account settings that you created for your webmaster account and then click the button sign up for Google analytics.

Figure 5 A Google Analytics account will provide you a graphical respresenation of your visitors’ behavior.

Complete the forms within the next two dialogue boxes and click to accept the terms of agreement (after reading and concurring, of course).

After you have accepted the terms, you will receive your unique Google Analytics code. Copy and paste this code into the source before the </head> command of every page that you wish to track. If you are not familiar with HTML code, I strongly recommend that you send this code to your webmaster and instruct that person to place the code before the </head> code of each page you wish to track or, better yet, of the template for your site.

Figure 6 The code that Google provides you is unique to just one site. Do not put the code in more than one site or it will skew your data.

Click save and finish when you are done. If you’re not ready to do this right at this moment, don’t worry. You can get the code whenever you need it.

From the radio buttons, choose the type of site. Typically you will have a single domain, but in some cases (such as with Convert-a-Book’s site shown on the next page), you will have subdomains and a domain. (Convert-a-Book uses a subdomain for their shopping cart. They chose domain and subdomains because they need to monitor the traffic of their store as well.)

Click the finish button to add your site to the dashboard. Notice the warning icon in the status column that indicates Google has not yet verified this site. This may take a couple of days, so be patient.

Figure 7 With the site added you will need to wait until Google has added your site. When it’s ready, the status warning symbol will be removed.

When your site is finally recognized by Google, analytics will tell you a lot about who is visiting, from where they are coming, where they are going within your site, how long they spend on each page, and much, much more. The help files here are a really great resource. I use them often to stay on top of changes and learn how to get even more benefit from this information.

4. Submit your site map.

In most cases, I do not to actually submit my site map until I have one week’s worth of data showing in my analytics account. That way I can see whether or not the site map has an impact on my site. I have never seen a case where a site map was not helpful in promoting a site, so you should expect to see some positive growth soon after you have completed the submission process.

Return to your webmaster account and click submit a site map in the lower-right corner of the dialogue box, click the button submit a site, and type in the URL of your site map. In my case it would be:

http://www.cshaffstall.com/c-shaffstall-sitemap.txt.

When you have successfully uploaded and navigated to your site map, the dashboard will list the site map.

Figure 8 Return to your webmaster account and upload your site map.

5. Monitor your growth.

It’s important to keep a close eye on your site’s growth and to work to improve its performance. There are a number of ways to do this, but one very important effort is the continual and consistent posting of content that links to current content. I recommend blogs to all of my clients because the very nature of a blog is to enable easy access and control of your site — without trying to connect with your webmaster each time you need a change.

Whether you have a blog or an HTML site, monitor your Google Analytics account very regularly. Once a day is not too often, however, if I have sent a direct-mail campaign with links to targeted landing pages, I might check my progress many times throughout the day. Doing so will alert me early if a problem exists, such as a broken link.

6. Create a user-friendly site-map page.

Site maps are great behind the scenes but they’re just an effective when they take center stage. Here are two examples of site maps for the Winning at Web Marketing site. The first, a graphical representation that makes finding the page within the site interesting and engaging.

Below is the actual text site map of the same site. This site is a blog site, so I used a free WordPress plugin, Table of Contents Creator, to automatically generate this site map.

Small-business Guide to Winning at Web Marketing

For more information on improving your search-engine-optimization skills, visit this link for 30% off the book Small-business Guide to Winning at Web Marketing — The What, How, Who, and When of Web Marketing

If you’re launching a new company or becoming a self-employed entrepreneur, then this book is for you. Small-business Guide to Winning at Web Marketing will help you to understand the electronic and traditional marketing landscapes and show how you can use them to benefit and grow your business.

Today’s marketing is a lot like playing pinball. It’s not a straight shot — you have to bounce around a lot to really rack up the points and since some pins are worth more than others, you need a certain amount of skill and luck to be able to ping them more than once. In this book, you’ll learn the game basics, some strategy, and a few tricks, but mastering pinball — web marketing — will depend entirely on how long you can keep the ball in play.

There are thousands of search-engine optimization services that you can enlist, but you should understand the options available. There is so much you can contribute and this will reduce the financial impact on your company that expensive contractors can have.

This book starts with your web site and rolls right on through social media, social bookmarking, blogging, press releases, news announcements, printed material, QR codes, and much more. Don’t flounder — you don’t have time. Get this book and win at web marketing.

If you’re launching a new company or becoming a self-employed entrepreneur, then this book is for you. Small-business Guide to Winning at Web Marketing will help you to understand the electronic and traditional marketing landscapes and show how you can use them to benefit and grow your business.

Today’s marketing is a lot like playing pinball. It’s not a straight shot — you have to bounce around a lot to really rack up the points and since some pins are worth more than others, you need a certain amount of skill and luck to be able to ping them more than once. In this book, you’ll learn the game basics, some strategy, and a few tricks, but mastering pinball — web marketing — will depend entirely on how long you can keep the ball in play.

I’ve spent 30 years as an entrepreneur — where you do it yourself because you don’t have the budget for otherwise.

There are thousands of search-engine optimization services that you can enlist, but you should understand the options available. There is so much where you can contribute and this will reduce the financial impact on your company that expensive contractors can have.

This book starts with your web site and rolls right on through social media, social bookmarking, blogging, press releases, news announcements, printed material, QR codes, and much more. Don’t flounder — you don’t have time. Get this book and win at web marketing.

Buy now: Small-business Guide to Winning at Web Marketing

Full-color, 8 X 10, 158 pages, illustrated
$54.99 + $4.95 shipping and handling within the continental US via USPS.

For shipping outside the US, email info@cshaffstall.com. Kindle and other eBook formats available soon.

Buy now: Small-business Guide to Winning at Web Marketing eBook [ePub]

Illustrated, $17.99.

About the Author

Cyndie Shaffstall, previously editor and publisher of X-Ray Magazine, began working in print shops and migrated to typesetting very early in her career. At the introduction of the Macintosh to the print industry in the mid-80s, Shaffstall became a corporate trainer helping print-shop professionals adopt and adapt to the Mac. She has authored or co-authored nearly a dozen books on computer software, and self-published her first, QuarkXPress: Making the Most of Your Negative Experiences. In 1995, Shaffstall founded ThePowerXChange, LLC, a software-distribution company dedicated to extensions technology. In addition to ThePowerXChange, Shaffstall is the managing member of StrappyArt, LLC, a product that she invented in 2006, and Spider Trainers, a SEO/SMO consultant company for the entrepreneur. She is also director of QuarkAlliance at Quark, Inc.

Full-color, 246 pages, illustrated
$54.99 + $6.95 shipping and handling within the continental US via USPS.

For shipping outside the US, email info@cshaffstall.com. Kindle and other eBook formats available soon.

Buy now: QuarkXPress 8: production tricks and experts’ tips

Full-color, 8 X 10, 246 pages, illustrated
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In a conversation with a friend of mine a few days ago, we were discussing the professional fear factor. This fear factor is about how we, as adults, naturally approach or decline opportunities.

I started a company a few years ago and one of the partner candidates said to me, “I’ve been waiting my whole career for an opportunity like this.” In another conversation, a friend expressed concern about putting up his own money to start a new venture. Much more recently, a colleague was embroiled in discourse at her job and chose to hold her tongue rather than risk being reprimanded or fired.

These are all examples of professional fear factors: the developer unwilling to launch a project on his own, the entrepreneur timid about spending his money, and the colleague afraid to speak up. The underlying concern, of course, is financial security. They all want it, but the fear factor immobilizes them.

I have a small group of very, very successful entrepreneurial friends. What these friends all have in common is the lack of fear factor. Like my six-year-old son, they have spent their life barreling down mountains at breakneck speeds in pursuit of the ultimate prize — without any real respect for the danger. It may well be that they will someday end up with their belonging strewn across the landscape, but even then, and knowing them the way I do, they will simply pick it all up and catch the lift to the top of the next hill.

I think there’s something to learn from this highly successful group, but it’s not a lesson for just anyone. There are entrepreneurs who are idea people, but they lack ambition. There are those with loads of ambition (like my developer friend), but who lack the ideas. A true success story is found in the person who possesses the ability to recognize opportunities, the ambition to implement, and the fortitude to see it to fruition. This combination eliminates the fear factor.

According to KnowEm, there are more than 350 current and emerging social-media networks. That number alone could scare you into inaction; it seems daunting. If you think that social media is represented by MySpace, giving consideration to the thought that there are 349 others might be beyond your capacity for imagination.

Relax. You, no matter your skill level, can participate in social media and use it as an incredibly valuable tools for promoting your business.

Pepsi announced this year that they will not feature an ad during the Super Bowl. This is a major departure from their previous years’ marketing campaigns where their ad was apparently a launch pad for much of the rest of the year’s advertisements. Pepsi has publicly said that they will focus more on social media and less on mass media. It’s a good move and, as a small-business owner, you should take note.

The most well-known social media sites right now are likely Twitter or Facebook. Others that you might recognize are MySpace, Plaxo, and LinkedIn. All of these offer promotional opportunities. If in no other manner than providing an additional touch for any standard campaign.

Consider this: You send a weekly email newsletter to your customers.

That’s it. You send a newsletter.

Now consider this: You send a weekly email newsletter to your customers and in the newsletter you offer them a 10% discount on their next order for following you on Twitter. On your Twitter account you post a weekly (or even daily) tip, tidbit, or offer that helps your customer or reminds them about a service you offer. (It’s a 140-character limit, so even the most reticent should be able to come up with something.)

OK, now consider this: You send a weekly newsletter, you post to Twitter, you post to Facebook, you post to your blog, and you add a landing page to your web site. That’s five touches; five times the coverage; and, get this, a small, small fraction of the cost. (Just ask Pepsi.)

So, while it’s easy to be intimidated about social media, you are missing some of the best free advertising you can get. If you’re still afraid, talk to your kids. They get this stuff.

As a parting thought, while your kids can show you how to get around, be sure that you keep your social-media presence where it should be: on a professional level. Your customers probably do not care to see your kids’ first at-bat, but really do want to know that you have launched a new service.

The great thing about the web is how readily available information is. You can learn about all sorts of topics with just a quick search. Give it a try. You’ll be driving your own social-media campaign in minutes and just think of what you can buy with the $2.3 million you were planning to spend on the Super Bowl ad.

This act amends the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958. It either adds or revises specific provisions that can mean different things depending on what your business is, where your company is located, and whether or not you intend to borrow money.

It’s often difficult to find plain speak in the midst of bills before congress, but according to GOP.gov H.R. 3854 is a combination of eight bills that would extend some stimulus programs and allow SBA to increase loans, provide capital to low-income areas and renewable-energy industries, and make loan guarantees to small healthcare firms purchasing health-information technology.

The SBA, created in 1953, has a loan portfolio of about 220,000 loans worth over $50 billion. The SBA operates several financing programs that are intended to bridge the gap in the conventional markets that small businesses encounter in trying to secure access to capital.

In a blog posting at Reuters.com, Geri Westphal, the owner of Ciao Bella Day Spa, which she opened in September 2008 in Littleton, Colorado, is quoted as saying, “You can’t get past the monkey at the gate.” Westphal attempted to get SBA financing through a half dozen banks before she resolved to bootstrap her business with personal savings and home equity. “It has to be the banks that change and really become reasonable,” said Westphal, who added her spa was close to posting break-even results when she sought government financing. “What I’m asking for is a small amount of money.” This act is designed to remove barriers and make money more available to the small businesses that need it.

Other bills before congress would provide for additional help:

• H.R. 3614 (sponsored by Rep. Velázquez, Nydia M): additional temporary extension of programs under the Small Business Act and the Small Business Investment Act of 1958
• H.R. 1807 (sponsored by Rep. Thompson, Glenn): Educating Entrepreneurs through Today’s Technology Act
• H.R. 1803 (sponsored by Rep. Nye, Glenn C.): Veterans Business Center Act of 2009
• Amendments to H.R. 2965: Enhancing Small Business Research and Innovation Act of 2009
• H.R. 2965 Amendments (sponsored by Rep. Altmire, Jason)

According to the SBA web site, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 as an independent agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist, and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation. The SBA helps Americans start, build, and grow businesses. Through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands and Guam.