Pleasant Fridays to ya!

Ever wonder how to social media? Yes, it’s true, we’ve taken the liberty of verbing “social media”, but it’s in the spirit of the slew of How-To articles we’ve provided for you this week. We’re particularly excited because we decided to introduce some things Neovia hasn’t touched on much, including 2d codes and customer events.

Then we’ve got the most recent takes on bettering your business approach to two key players, Facebook and Foursquare. And don’t fear redundancy. The social media world is so rapidly changing (and we get you the sizzling hot new stuff) that every new article hits a new beat. So this next week, we’ve got the “how-to”, you’ve got the “do”. Until next time, von boyage!

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How To Get People to Friend Your Business on Facebook. “1) Ask nicely; 2) Make a nice offer, like a small gift, discount, or a donation to charity; 3) Don’t get fancy.”

How To Better Utilize the new Foursquare for Business. “The check-in giant recently relaunched their business page offerings, making it easier for local businesses, retail chains and individual brands to reap the benefits and retain customers.”

How To Develop Ideas That Will Disrupt Your Industry. “In 2003, Jonah Staw was having dinner with some friends in a trendy restaurant in San Francisco when the discussion turned to what he calls “disruptive business ideas.” Suggestions were flying left and right, and at one point, someone asked, ‘How crazy would it be if some company started selling socks that didn’t match?’”

How To: Grow Your Revenue and Sales using 2d Codes. “By now, you’re probably already familiar with 2D codes. They’re the square boxes that are showing up on ads, posters and billboards that connect people to mobile sites for more product information…Here’s a primer and some key examples of how top companies are using 2D codes to improve business.”

How To Host a Customer Events.“Events for customers are a throwback to the days when a handshake was more meaningful than a text alert. An event done right can be just as valuable today, but done wrong can be an expensive cocktail party.”

image courtesy www.multyshades.com

I was staring forlornly out the window, an empty basket sat where tacos had been before I had inhaled them.

“Being Chief Inspiration Officer is hard,” he said.

I managed a weak smile and a muffled chuckle. What an understatement.

I had traveled to a larger nearby city for personal reasons, but met up with a business friend to discuss my latest experiences in small business ownership to see if I could get a little advice.

One of the hardest parts of what I do here at Neovia Solutions is not the client work, the relationship building, the presenting and speaking, or even the high level strategy work we’re known for; the hardest part of what I do is setting the example for our interns.

Their Best is Only As Good As My Best

Whatever I do, the interns will do. Whatever my attitude, the interns will emulate it. If I don’t answer their emails, they learn that it’s OK to not answer emails. If I miss a deadline for them, they see that it’s OK to miss a deadline. If I let a work matter effect me or my performance, they believe that work matters can and will effect your performance.

What’s more is whatever good and positive things I do will be learned by them as well. So I must do good and positive things. I must think and act positively so that they will become good and positive workers.

Business Owners Have the Opportunity to Grow the Best… or the Worst

As business owners, even as bosses and managers, we have the opportunity to mold our younger cohorts into the kind of workers we want for ourselves, the kind of workers we want for the world. We have the opportunity to teach them how to be good, responsible, and passionate employees who genuinely care about their customers and believe in our product or service.

Or we can mold our younger counterparts into the kind of employees we dread, the kind we run into everyday, at every age – unsympathetic, self-focused, frazzled and harried workers who dread their own work and disdain their customers for inconveniencing them with their business.

Chief Perspiration Officer

When I took my business title, Chief Inspiration Officer, I thought it meant that I would inspire our clients to jump into the social media world. I didn’t realize that inspiration inside our walls would be just as important, if not more so, than outside or online.

Inspiring our interns means pushing myself to live our mission, to always fan the flames of my passion for our digital world, and to find the best ways to run this business, not just the most common way.

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G’day, folks. This week’s roundup is catered to small businesses. First, we start out with some of the considerations one should take in deciding to go big or stay small, posing the question, “is small business better business?”. Then, we offer you some resources concerning location and websites. So, what do you think?

Be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

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21 compelling reasons to stay small. Sometimes it’s just a conversation with a big business owner that puts things into perspective for you.

6 ways to stay small and still win big. It’s worth it to consider staying small, as the above article shows. And small doesn’t mean unsuccessful. Hello, My Name is Blog (Scott Ginsberg–the guy who is never seen without a name tag) shows how to do business in a fulfilling, indie rock star sort of way without worrying about being too expansive with your company.

Small Business Guide: How to choose an incubator. Neovia recently moved into the Del Mar Small Business Incubator, and we couldn’t be happier with the move. Incubators are suites with a variety of startups, all with access to each other for advice and guidance–whoever’s willing. There are four common types, and the New York Times gives a good summary of them. Which one’s right for you?

The New About Us Page is a Social Beast. Rethink the About Us page. Now, more than ever before, it’s a valuable way not only to give people the skinny on “Us” but to give them more avenues to learn more about your company with social links, chat, tech support, and more depending on how creative you get.

6 Must-Haves for your Small Business Website. It may seem simple, but whether you’re just getting into it, or have gone through so many redesigns that you’ve forgotten the basics, this article shows you a few things that are pretty much standards on modern websites to meet user expectation.

original image courtesy matley0 on Flickr.

Hey folks,

We’ve got your weekly roundup for you, and this week it has a personal touch. I work for Neovia Solutions remotely in Providence, RI (because it’s great!) and I’m in my last semester at Brown University. Naturally, in a senior frenzy, I’m wondering what I’m going to do in my life. While it will almost positively be in Film and Motion Pictures, as per the LinkedIn category, I’ve got a lot of work to do. So I’ve decided to share some articles on LinkedIn and job hunting with you.

So this week we’re trying to help those entering the job market or looking to make a move in the job market via LinkedIn. LinkedIn has got a plethora of tools, from Groups, to Skills, to the Online Resume Builder (and, if you haven’t seen this, the big JOBS section)–that are there to create an appropriate, acceptable environment to make yourself noticed should any recruiters come your way, or should you approach an individual yourself.

We’ve done our best to make sure these articles are as recent as possible, but we caught a few oldies-but-goodies we think you’ll like as well.

So be on the lookout every week for news, tips from pros, reviews, emerging technology, and a whole bundle of thought-provoking articles on this ever-developing, exciting world of social media.

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JobSeekers with Recommendations on LinkedIn get hired: We put this first to convince you we’re not just Joshin’ you. As this article elaborates on, JobSeekers on LinkedIn who had more recommendations moved faster through the LinkedIn systems, with over half of the sample having one or more LinkedIn recommendation.

Profile Building, Basic and Advanced

LinkedIn Tips for Job Hunters: LinkedIn expert Rob Mendez takes readers through the key points on building an attractive profile for employers. Though some standards should be kept–such as appropriate photos and names–it does end up in separating yourself from the rest, and he’s got some good tips to help you get there.

Why Your LinkedIn Profile Isn’t Working: This article offers a few short, solid things that often go unnoticed in keeping up with your LinkedIn profile that can give you that extra boost if you become aware of them and work with them. I should be clear, there are different ideas here than in the other articles.

Advanced LinkedIn Tips, “15 LinkedIn Tips to Help You Find a Job, Work Smarter, Boost Your Career”: I called this one Advanced LinkedIn Tips myself. While two of the other articles here go over basic techniques to get a solid profile, this one starts working past that and getting into some more sophisticated, next-level techniques. Do check it out.

Tools

LinkedIn Tip: How To Discover The Hottest New Job Skills: Though the title to this article looks like it should be on Cosmo for CEO’s magazine, the content is what you should be looking for, because LinkedIn’s got a brand spankin’ new thing called Skills, and it lets you find out what skills are out there (to differentiate yourself and determine your competition) and allows job recruiters to find out, well, what skills you have.

LinkedIn Career Explorer: Though released last October, I personally tried this last week and it was one of the scariest but helpful things I’ve done in my career search. It’s in beta form, but does a good job of suggesting many kinds of career paths within whatever industry you choose. I recommend taking it for a spin.

Using LinkedIn Groups to Grow a Professional Network and Get A Job: It’s exactly what it says it is, and perhaps one of the stronger jobseeking methods on LinkedIn.

Basics of LinkedIn Jobs: So this is one of those oldies-but-goodies, but it’s straight from the LinkedIn blog, so we feel excused.

Extras

More, More, More!: Here are a bunch of additional links from LinkedInIntelligence.Com. Scroll down to the jobs section.

image courtesy www.workawesome.com

Salutations, compadres. We’ve got your roundup for you, and this week we profile probably the hottest new thing in the social media market this new year (is it the next Foursquare?!), Quora.

Quora is a question and answer website that might remind us of Facebook Questions, LinkedIn Q&A, Ask.com, and more. And you wouldn’t be too far off, but Quora has got some important differences, and some likely tempting implications for your business. Of particular, initial note, it requires correct spelling and grammar when people ask questions. Comforting, no? At least we got through that much.

We’re rather self-satisfied with this group of articles and where it ends up, with the meaty “Social Media for Business, Not Social Media Hipsters” article. It’s worth it to take a look at several of these articles to make sure this isn’t you boat to catch before everyone’s on it.

We want to hear from you–on our blog, on our Facebook wall, or tweet at us! What do you make of Quora? Is it all hype, or did somebody finally get it right?

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All About Quora

Should I care about Quora: Mario Sundar suggests that Quora may not be for all business owners, but for those in the business of information (businesses that have blogs, twitter accounts), it could serve more useful than–or a strong supplement to–other current social media outlets.

Is Quora The Next Red-Hot Web Startup?: Time covers some of the story of Quora, its ups and downs, and how the community of quora (intelligent, well informed individuals) is its core strength. Will it last is the primary question.

Quora Booms, but Will Marketers Follow?: Clickz presents both B2B and B2C potential in Quora, as well as the idea that it could serve similar peer review functions to something like Yelp. “Consumers have already started to use Quora for feedback on products, restaurants, services, and more,” Spinks said. “A quick search of ‘restaurants in NYC’ will display a number of questions already asked by users…As Quora grows and reaches the less tech-savvy masses, the B2C value will only grow. This will be especially true if they open up their content to search engines, like they said they would a while back – but still haven’t as far as I know.”

7 Reasons Why Quora Will Be Bigger Than Foursquare: Logic+Emotion gives a quick response to the Quora buzz, saying that the ultimate usefulness of knowledge from professionals and experts, among other things, may end up more appealing than 2010′s hot social media hit, Foursquare.

Here’s What Makes Quora Better Than Other Q&A Services: Business Insider suggests that the specificity of Quora’s knowledge base is perhaps its biggest strength, even rivaling the everything-tyrant Google: “Quora seems to be a delightful indication of the beginning of the end of Google’s monopolization over search engines, at least in the search for very specific knowledge.”

Social Media for Business, Not Social Media Hipsters: Chief Branding Officer Lisa Barone of Outspoken Media gets straight to the heart of what you’re looking for, and gives you several tangible ways you can use Quora for business. Teaser? Why, only just a little: Market Research, Vendor/Tool Vetting, Make Connections.